Continuation of Danny Phantom
by Himitsu no Tokumei
Summary: My continuation of the Danny Phantom series, starting after Episode 51: D-Stabilized. Phantom Planet has not, and will not, occur. More information inside. Please read headnote.
1. Episdoe 52: Alter Egos

Very original title, I know. Just as the description says, it is my continuation of Danny Phantom starting after D-stabilized; that is why the first chapter is called Episode 52. Since Phantom Planet was a totally botched ending just so fans wouldn't be completely pissed at an incomplete series, I am completely disregarding it. Now for a few notes on the story:

It was kind of confusing looking over the episodes leading up to D-Stabilized to determine a timeline on them. For Season 1 and 2 Danny is supposed to be 14, and 15 in Season 3. Reality Trip (episode 37-38) is set during summer, Double Cross My Heart and Kindred Spirits (episodes 39 and 40) both have school scenes, but then Claw of the Wild (episode 50) is back during summer, at a summer camp. So I had to sift through all that mess. I decided to ignore that small mess. This chapter starts right after the summer, on the first day of school. Danny, Sam, and Tucker are all 15.

I am trying to write this in a similar style to the series itself, so in a way each chapter (or episode, actually) is its own story, that in some way, either loosely or majorly, ties into the main plot, with the occasional simply funny episode. I also have three "movie" episodes planned, which take up two, two, and three chapters repectively in the synopsis. They will be posted in parts. My main worry is that I put too much detail into it (using descriptions instead of names). If possibly, I would like any feedback you have for me on that, and anything else that might catch your attention. Just send me a PM or review :)

Anything in Mr. Lancer's speech that is _italicized_ is the title of a book.

**I do not own Danny Phantom :'(  
**

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**Episode 52: Alter Ego**

The hallway was filled with sleepy teenagers, half-dead zombies with huge, dark circles under their eyes and hair that looked like they just crawled out of bed, and some of them had. Paulina's perfect make-up did little to hide the tiredness in her face and Dash's usual enthusiasm for beating up nerds was drowned out in his groggy yawns. A couple people looked near to falling over from sleep deprivation and others had actually fallen asleep on their first period desks. It seemed everyone was totally out of it, but that wasn't entirely true. "What's wrong with everyone?" the strangely vibrant girl with purple eyes and lipstick asked, looking curiously at her completely lackluster classmates.

"I don't know, Sam," the dark-haired boy with blue eyes beside her replied sarcastically. He was equally as awake as his companion, showing only the smallest signs of tiredness, though it didn't seem from lack of sleep. "They probably aren't used to getting up at five in the morning to fight ghosts," he added in a much quieter tone so only the two people beside could hear.

"Am I hearing a bit of contempt in your tone?" the third teenager in the group asked, tossing his PDA in the air and deftly catching it.

Letting out an exasperated sigh and opening his locker, Danny stated, "You know I don't hate ghost fighting, although it can get annoying at times." An image of the Box Ghost popped into his head, the very non-threatening ghost trying to frighten him with several decaying boxes in a long-since-forgotten storage shed. "I just don't care much for school. It's like fighting ghosts, except I can't use my powers to fight back."

Just as he closed his locker and took a step back someone ran into him. "Watch where you're going, Fentino!" Dash growled before continuing on his way.

"See what I mean?" Danny asked, sighing as they started down the hallway, stopping at Sam's locker. "I can beat up Technus or Skulker when they attack me, but all I can do with Dash is run away! It's kind of infuriating."

"At least Dash isn't trying to kill you though," Sam pointed out, grabbing a book and closing the locker door.

Shaking his head, Danny said, "There are times when sure seems like he wants to."

"He's not trying to skin you and rest your pelt at the foot of his bed," Tucker added, the three friends continuing on to their class.

Chuckling, the ghost-boy's spirits seemed to lift a little. "I'll have to give you that one," he said, stopping in his tracks as a small trail of icy breath escaped his mouth. "Here?" he asked no one in particular, looking around to try and find the ghost. Through a small classroom door window on the opposite wall of the hallway the cause of Danny's ghost sense trigger could see the silver coat and hair of a very familiar ghost.

"Technus," the three said simultaneously, a small hint of exasperation in their voices.

"They can't even leave me alone on the first day of school," Danny grumbled, more than a little annoyance in his voice as he ran down the more crowded hallway and around a corner to a deserted one. One quick glance to make sure no one could see him, Danny shouted, "Going ghost!" Twin rings appeared around the fifteen-year-old's waist, one rising and the other falling, changing his white and red shirt and blue jeans into a black Hazmat suit with a stylized D with a P inside it on his chest, white Hazmat boots and gloves, and changing his black hair and blue eyes white and green respectively. Standing where Danny Fenton had just been was Danny Phantom, Amity Park's own superhero.

A door next to the ghost child opened suddenly, startling him. "Fentonouski?" Dash asked, looking out into the hallway. "Danny Phantom!" he shouted once he saw Danny, suddenly wide away. "Wow, I can't believe I thought I heard Fentoenail out here. I'm one of your biggest fans, Danny Phantom!"

"Great, just what I need…" Danny sighed to himself, his voice holding that faint echo all ghosts seemed to have. "Look, there is an evil ghost that I have to go fight so… be sure to get to class on time!" Without giving Dash time to react, he quickly flew back around the corner and towards the computer lab.

"What took you so long, Danny?" Tucker asked, slightly frantic as he watched through the computer lab window. Technus was currently laughing maniacally, several computers floating around the room.

"Dash nearly saw me," Danny said, eyes narrowing and turning intangible, Danny grabbed hit two friends' shoulders and fazed them through the door. "He heard me say 'going ghost,' but luckily I had already changed so he didn't see it, but he did 'think' he heard me."

Shaking her head as her friend set her down, Sam replied, "You really need to be more careful, Danny. What if he actually did see you?"

"I know, I know," the white-haired teen sighed, turning his attention to the other ghost in the room.

Their conversation alerted Technus to their presence, the ghost turning around and laughing at them. "Hello there, ghost-child," his voice sounded, that typical drawl lengthening the syllables. "I am Technus, ghost master of all electronics, and I will soon be pummeling you with my newest creation! Just watch as all this groovy technology becomes—ah, ah, aaaahhh!" A blue beam had grabbed onto his green ghost tail, pulling him towards the small cylinder in the half-ghost's hands. The computers flying around suddenly lost their green glow, also losing their ability to fly and falling straight towards the ground. The loud crashes made the three teens flinch.

Placing the top back on the Fenton Thermos and shaking it a little, Danny asked, "Is he ever going to learn? I mean, if he paid a little more attention then he would have realized he was going to get sucked into the Fenton Thermos." Laughing and stepping to the side so he was no longer visible from the door window, Danny changed back into his human form.

Opening her backpack so her friend could put the ghost containment device in it, Sam asked, "Kind of like how if you paid more attention then Dash wouldn't have almost figured out your secret?"

Glaring as Tucker started laughing, he shoved the thermos into the spider-shaped bag and snapped, "Shut up, Sam."

"Hey, don't be hating," she said coolly, holding her hands up defensively. "I'm just pointing it out."

Opening the door and quickly getting away from the mess, Danny replied, "It doesn't mean you have to say it, though. It was nerve-wracking enough when it happened."

"So I will continue to remind you so it doesn't happen again," Sam replied smugly, the three teens rounding the corner at the end of the hall.

Mr. Lancer curiously came around the corner at the other end of the hall, looking up and down the empty corridor for whatever loud crashing had caught his attention. He then saw the open computer lab door and cautiously approached it, peering around it carefully just in case something was in there. "_Pride and Prejudice_! What has happened here?" he shouted, looking in on over a dozen busted computer monitors.

* * *

"Did you hear about what happened in computer lab B?" Paulina's asked as she sat her tray down and took a seat next to her best friend, Star.

"Yeah, I heard someone completely trashed it," the aforementioned girl stated, that icy undertone freezing her words.

Danny had the poor luck of walking by the popular table right at that time and he soon found himself acquainted with the floor. "I don't know who did it," the owner of the foot who tripped Danny started, "but I bet that Fenturd and his geeky friends had something to do with it."

Biting his tongue and trying to keep his anger from making his eyes glow green, Danny slowly rose to his hands and knees, grabbing his spilled tray and then rising to his feet. Gritting his teeth with ghost green creeping into his blue eyes, Danny put the now empty tray in the appropriate bin and continued to his table. "Here Danny," Sam said as he sat down, sliding her tray, and subsequently the veggie wrap on it, over to the half-ghost.

Taking a few deep breaths, Danny forced himself to calm down before thanking Sam, not wanting any of his displeasure towards Dash to come out at the goth girl. "Thanks for sharing Sam," he said a second time after taking a gracious bite.

"Oh, no problem," she replied, stabbing some lettuce and a tomato from her salad. "I had extra and Dash kind of ruined your lunch. Of course I'd give you some of mine."

"Well, thanks again, Sam," the fifteen-year-old repeated, starting to sound like a broken record. He was about to take another bite when his ghost sense went off. Sighing and sitting it down on the tray, he frustratedly asked, "Again?"

Glancing around the room and out the large windows, he saw nothing, but his ghost sense had told him something was there, somewhere. "And that is why you don't bully other kids, Bully," a voice came from under the table.

Jumping slightly at the unexpected voice, Danny leaned back a little to see the nerdy 50s ghost with glasses, sitting and hugging his knees under their table. "Poindexter," he said quietly, a small edge of surprise in his voice. "How many times do I have to tell you I'm not a bully? And what are you doing here anyway? Last I knew you were living it up in Casper High of '55."

"You're not a bully but you use your powers to pick on other kids," Poindexter retorted, pointing one finger at the ghost-boy.

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Danny replied, "It was payback for all the times he picked on me, and I stopped doing that anyway. If I was really a bully wouldn't I have just used my powers to blast him back there?" The bullied ghost could not find a response for that, and after a moment of silence Danny asked again, "What are you doing here Poindexter?"

Chuckling nervously and pressing his forefingers together, he was about to answer when all of a sudden the whole room lost some of its color, as if it was halfway transported onto black and white film.

A trail of icy was exhaled with the dark-haired teenager's breath, and the source of it wasn't that hard to find this time. Floating six feet above the ground was a monochrome jock that seemed to have come from the same place Poindexter had, and Danny was pretty sure he probably had. Screams rang out from the other tables as the students innocently eating their lunch spotted the ghost, the terrified teenagers jumping up out of their seats and running around the cafeteria in a mass of confusion. "That makes things easier," the young ghost hunter commented, slipping under the table. "Going ghost!" Danny called, accompanied by the flash of his transformation.

Dash stopped and looked over at Sam and Tucker, but couldn't find the outlet he used to release his anger. "I could have sworn I just heard Fentony yell something," he said, to which the other two smiled nervously.

"Nope, Danny isn't here," Sam said quickly, trying to hide her unease.

"Yeah. I, uh, think he went to the bathroom to get the… uh… green… surprise… off of his hands," Tucker added, looking equally as awkward.

Turning and grabbing Poindexter by the shirt, point a finger right in his face, the ghost-boy said, "I'm not through with you yet. We will talk after I get rid of this guy." Gulping down the lump in his throat, Poindexter quickly nodded so Danny would release him. Fazing up through the table, and having to keep himself from 'accidentally' knocking the tray his wrap was on into Dash if for no other reason than to keep Poindexter from being right, Danny came to a scene where the other ghost was giving Lester a horrid wedgy, pulling the poor kid's underwear up over his head. "Geez, whether you're a jock or a ghost jock you just have to pick on someone, don't you?" he asked, attracting the ghost's attention, as well as about everyone else in the room.

"I'm just having a little harmless fun," the colorless 1955 version of Dash replied lightheartedly.

"Yeah, stringing people up by their underwear is harmless fun," Danny scoffed, crossing his arms unapprovingly. "Now, why you try picking on someone who can fight back." At the insinuation of the start of a fight the last of the students cleared out of the mess hall, though many stopped at the doors to watch. The only exceptions were Sam and Tucker, who instead slipped under the table with their lunches to wait for their friend.

The ghost jock seemed to think about it for a moment, if that was possible, before grinning and saying, "Fighting you, huh? Well, if Poindexter could do it you can't be that tough!"

The ghost started flying right at him, fist out in front of him and ready for a punch. Danny couldn't help but roll his eyes at the feeble attempt. The spectral football player was moving at a slug's speed compared to how fast Danny could fly, and he wasn't even putting any ghost energy into his fist. Lazily pointing a finger at the ghost, he shot the guy with a ghost ray that sent him flying back into wall above the opening to the kitchen. "Pathetic," he yawned, pulling out the Fenton Thermos and removing the top. "Good news, Technus, I'm giving you a friend," he said to the ghost already trapped inside, capturing the knocked out jock ghost and replacing the top on the thermos.

"Curse you, Ghost-Boy!" could vaguely be heard through the metal container, to which it was rewarded with a quick shake.

Flying back under the table, he heard the sound of doors opening and feet approaching so he quickly grabbed his two friends and Poindexter and fazed all of them through the floor and into the basement. Changing back and taking his wrap form Sam, he turned his gaze directly to the only other ghost in the room (well, outside of the Fenton Thermos), and demanded, "Now tell me what's going on Poindexter."

"So, let me get this straight," Sam cut in as Poindexter was about to finish his story. "You kept going around bragging about how you had defeated Danny Phantom, so after a while all the tough guys in your 1955 ghost zone school thing decided they wanted to test their strength by fighting you. So you ran here to ask Danny to let you defeat him again so that the other ghosts would see how strong you are and leave you alone?"

Sighing and hanging his head, the nerdy ghost replied, "Yeah, pretty much."

The bell could faintly be heard, even in the basement. "That's the first bell," Danny said, getting up off of the wooden crate he was sitting on. Pointing a finger at their troublesome guest, he said, "We will continue this discussion later, after class."

"Does that mean you'll help me?" Poindexter asked, looking quite excited.

"No," the half-ghost deadpanned, grabbing his two friends and making all three of them intangible. "It means we will try to figure something out after class." Fazing up through the ceiling and back into the cafeteria under the table they had been sitting at, the three quickly headed to class before the tardy bell rang.

Sitting in Mr. Lancer's boring English class, hear him drone on and on with his boring speech about how great it was to be back at school after a boring lecture on not breaking school property, which his gaze seemed to hover a bit longer on a particular black-haired teen during, the last thing Danny wanted was his ghost sense going off. "It's only me," an invisible Poindexter stated, quiet enough that no one besides the boy next to him could hear.

"What are you doing here?" Danny asked sharply, but equally quiet, lowering his head a little so Mr. Lancer wouldn't be able to see his mouth moving.

"When one of those guys come after me again I want to be near you so you can protect me," Poindexter replied as if it was obvious.

"I'm not your shield," the half-ghost shot back, glaring at the invisible person to his right.

"No, but you always help those in need, right?" the full-ghost retorted, looking quite smug in his invisible-ness. Danny's non-response was all the response he needed. Doing all he could to keep himself from laughing, Poindexter started floating around the room, looking at what the other students were using to drown out their teacher. Danny sighed, it was going to be a long day.

"Danny, what's wrong?" Sam asked when she met up with the clearly grouchy teenager. Without saying a word, he walked to his locker, opened it, and waited for the hallway to clear before pointing to the empty air above his left shoulder. Poindexter suddenly appeared, making the other two teenager's jump. "Oh, that's what's wrong."

"I never knew there was something duller than Mr. Lancer speaking, but Poindexter sure proved me wrong," Danny complained, slamming his locker door closed. "If I have to hear one more lame story of life back in 1955 I swear I am going to scream." A small stream of icy breath didn't make his mood any better. The ghost that floated through the wall looked like another black-and-white football player, there for Poindexter, no doubt. Sam and Tucker nodded to signal the coast was clear, Danny shouted, "Going ghost!" twin rings sliding up and down his body, changing it from ghost to human.

With a somewhat excited look on his face, the ghost said, "I come looking for Poindexter and find the Halfa. Beating you up will really increase my reputation."

Easily dodging the slowly thrown punch, Danny reached into Sam's bag to retrieve the Fenton Thermos and grabbed the bully by the pack of his letter jacket, fazing through the walls and going out to the outside commons. "Do all you football players have brain damage?" he asked snidely, throwing the ghost into one of the trees. "Because the last one of you who came thought they could beat me, too."

"If that wimpy Poindexter can defeat you then you can't be that tough," this one said, too, just like the last one that was still resting in the Fenton Thermos alongside Technus.

Flying through the wall and up towards the fight, stopping just behind the white-haired half-ghost. "Give him a nice ghost ray!" he told Danny enthusiastically, holding his fists out in front of him and punching the air. More than a little annoyed, Danny glared back at cowardly nerd. "What?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders and looking a little sheepish.

Before Danny could answer the ghost he had taken his attention from connected a fist to his cheek, sending him back a couple feet. The ghost-boy turned his glare onto his attacker, who had a smug look on his face. "A cheap shot, huh?" he asked quietly, watching as the jock grabbed Poindexter by the front of his shirt. "Let me repay the favor." Too annoyed to hold back, he extended his hand towards the two, a ball of green energy forming in his palm. The green beam of ghost energy shot from his outstretched hand, hitting the monochrome jock in the chest, sending him flying back and causing him to release the poor nerd ghost in the process. Taking out the Thermos, he pointed it to the recovering football player ghost and mocked, "Let me introduce you to my little friends." The blue beam pulling him into the thermos, Danny closed it once again, shaking it for good measure. "Actually, I think you already know one of them."

"Hot diggidy dog! You're amazing!" Poindexter cheered, floating down to Danny, who had landed on the ground. The half-ghost wasn't quite as pleased to see him, though.

Grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling the smaller ghost up so their noses here just a couple inches apart, green eyes narrowed in anger, and said with more than just an ounce of annoyance, "I can't keep protecting you from theses creeps."

"But you keep defending them, don't you? Why can't you help me, too?" he asked, gesturing towards the school and the people inside.

"I protect them from ghosts because they don't have the ability to fight back," Danny countered, releasing Poindexter and taking a few steps back towards the building.

"I don't have the ability to fight those ghost bullies either," Poindexter retorted, waving his arm in the direction the last enemy ghost had appeared from.

Sighing in exasperation, Danny turned back around, taking the few steps back towards the other ghost and pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You're a ghost," he said sharply. "You can turn invisible, turn intangible enough to go through walls, you can manipulate items using ghost energy, and you can overshadow people. So far the only thing I see them doing is throwing their weight around. Find some way to defend yourself." Stalking back off towards the school, he made it quite clear the conversation was over. And the tardy bell ringing didn't help his mood any.

* * *

The release bell was a welcome sound to Danny Fenton's ears. Meeting up with Sam and Tucker in the hallway it was obvious he was in a much better mood. "Good to see I'm back to being the most sour person in the group," Sam joked, getting a laugh out of her two friends.

"I've had absolutely no ghost encounters since fifth period ended," Danny said, grinning quite happily. "Also, there's been no sign of—" the pallid ghost screaming and flying by in front of them as if it had been thrown or hit "—Poindexter…" The cheer was completely stolen from his voice with that one word. Sighing defeatedly as another ghost jock followed the ghost nerd, he said, "I guess I'd better go help him." Taking the thermos out of his locker, he started running down the hall towards the front doors to the school, running towards a normally deserted hallway. "Going gh—oof!" he started, running right into Dash.

"Going what, Fenturd?" the non-ghost jock asked, picking up the partially-alive smaller kid up by the shirt. "Going to get a pummeling?"

"Oh, great," Danny said under his breath, watching Poindexter getting attacked just outside the front doors. "Just what I need."

Poindexter looked back and forth between Danny and the bully that had followed him from his school. The former, of whom he had been counting on keeping him safe, was now in the clutches of his own bully, and since most people didn't know about his secret he couldn't change. That meant, and he gulped loudly at the thought, that he'd have to do something about it. Obviously fearful, Poindexter floated up until he was the same distance above the ground as his opponent. Holding a hand out in front of him in the gesture to 'stop,' he said with a shaky voice, "N-now you have b-better leave, a-and go b-back to where y-you came from!"

"Oh, and who's gonna make me, Poindork?" the floating jock asked, folding his arms across his chest and giving a full throated laughter.

"I was afraid you'd ask that," Poindexter whispered to himself. Starting to sweat as the other ghost got closer, he threw both hands out in front of him and looked away, closing his eyes as he shouted, "G-get away!"

The small explosion startled Dash into seeing the battle outside. Not liking what he was seeing, he said, "Today's your lucky day, Fenton." Dropping the smaller teen to the cold, tiled floor, he shouted, "I'm out of here!"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Danny looked around to make sure no one was watching and he activated his transformation. Fazing through the wall, he was pleasantly surprised to the green afterglow of a ghost ray on Poindexter's hands. Laughing wholeheartedly, he floated up and patted Poindexter on the back. "See, I told you you could do it," Danny said, capturing the latest 1995 ghost school ghost.

"You're right, I did do it!" Poindexter cheered.

"Now just don't go exaggerating the story or bragging about it and you should be able to avoid creating a situation like this again," Danny stated, floating down until he landed on the grass below. "Now, do I have to put you in the thermos or will you go back to the ghost zone on your own?"

Chuckling, Poindexter started flying off. "I'm going," he said, waving as he headed back towards the Fenton Portal.

Going around the side of the school to change back, he came back to the front and met up with Sam and Tucker again, the former of which had the stuff he wanted from his locker. "I'd have to say that went pretty good," he said to his two friends. "Four ghosts captured, Poindexter able to defend himself, and no one found out my secret."

"Not for lack of chances," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, I know," Danny replied, looking down a bit. Sam, who had been expecting some sort of sharp refute, was quite shocked. "Always shouting 'going ghost' right before changing… it's like Technus shouting out his battle plan as I'm kicking his butt."

"Hey, I can hear you!" Shaky shaky thermos.

"Not to mention if they don't see you immediately that crying out like that will just give you away," Sam added as they started down the sidewalk. "That and the fact that Dash, who we all know is stupider than a decaying piece of drift wood, almost found out three times today."

Chuckling a bit, Danny said, "Yeah, seriously. Now who wants to find something non-ghost-related to do for the rest of the afternoon?"

"Me!" the other two teenager shouted in unison, all three laughing as they continued down the street.

"That is after you empty the thermos," Sam added. "You have four ghosts crammed in that thing."

* * *

A quick note, this is the only Episode I'm writing where Danny uses his "Going ghost!" battle cry.

I am only going to post Episode 52 for right now, for two reason. 1) I want some feedback on how well I followed the style of Danny Phantom in this story. If necessary I will retype this chapter. 2) I actually don't have the scenario for the next chapter. I do have synopsis for 17 other chapters, but not for the next chapter. If I don't have an idea by the time I get the answer to my question I will post a poll to ask fans what enemy they want to see next.

If the chapter is rewritten I will send everyone who PMed and/or reviewed it a PM saying it was rewritten. At the same time, if I do post a poll on my profile I will send out a PM to the people who PMed and/or reviewed a PM telling them that, unless requested that I don't.


	2. Episode 53: Little Beauty Shop of Horror

I would like to thank **CatchingWind, Fluehatraya, Elegon, Oak Leaf Ninja, **and **Undead009** for their reviews.

Unless I come up with more ideas, this will contain 29 episodes. 7 of those episodes are parts of 3 different 'movie' episodes, so it totals to 25 ideas.

One more note for the setting of this series, their birthdays are off from what the original series has. In episode 36 (right before Reality Trip) Sam mentions that if the Ecto-Acne kills them then they won't have a 15th birthday, meaning their birthdays are over summer. Sam's birthday is in the first quarter of the school year in this fanfic (a few chapters ahead) and Danny's is in the third or fourth quarter.

This episode is quite a bit longer than the last one, this one totaling around 7500 words and the last one having just 4500. Makes me realize just how short Episode 52 was...

**I do not own Danny Phantom :'(  
**

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**Episode 53: Little Beauty Shop of Horrors**

The peace and tranquility of lunch was disturbed by an unearthly squeal, not that it had startled many. Pretty much only freshmen weren't used to it yet, the rest of the cafeteria either straining to hear what was going on at the popular table or shrinking away from it in an attempt to get away. Mostly it was the former; Paulina had that affect on people. "Did you guys hear?" she asked the blondes on either side of her, voice thickly accented. "The new spa will open today. I'm so excited."

"I heard it's not just a spa," Dash stated, seeming quite enthused himself. "I heard they have an indoor pool and a hot tub and these huge toilets designed just for giving nerds swirlies!" Standing and punching his open palm, Dash turned to look at his favorite punching bag as he said that last sentence. Feeling the jock's gaze and having overheard the conversation all too well, Danny shrunk down in his seat a little more in an attempt to disappear. That only made Dash grin.

Star, on the other hand, had other things about the new establishment that filled her with giddy energy. "They're supposed to have mud baths and herbal baths and over fifty different facials."

"And pedicures and manicures," Paulina cut in, the two girls clasping each others hands in anticipation. "There is supposed to be a hair salon and tanning salon there as well. They even give free make-up lesson to the hopeless cases." Although she didn't say any names it was obvious by where she was looking who that last comment was directed at. Sam just bit her tongue to keep herself from retaliating with harsh words about she didn't need such shallow things.

Dash joined in the conversation again at this point. "There is supposed to be a tattoo parlor there, too. My dad said I could get one, which is why I know," he said, giving them a big, macho grin.

"I personally can't wait for a massage," Star cut in, nearly swooning at just the thought. "They are also supposed to have acupuncture there, but I don't think I could stand having needles stuck in me. You're pretty brave to be going for a tattoo Dash. You do know they use needles to do that, right?"

"Of course I do!" he said, giving the girl a short glare. "Do you really think I'm afraid of some dumb needle?" The two girls looked at each other, expressions showing just a hint of apprehension and confusion. Well, they should have known to not put Dash's masculinity into question.

"So what are you going to get?" Paulina asked, a large smile on her face.

The football player couldn't help but be a little disturbed by just how cheery she was and momentarily forgot to answer her. Not that his answer was a good one. "Uh…" he started, voice containing that droll, brainless tenor most idiots had, "I don't know. Maybe a football, or a skull, or a dragon. Or a dragon with a skull helmet holding a football. Something along those lines, probably."

"Maybe he should get a brain tattooed on him, so then he would have one," Danny quipped quiet enough that he wouldn't be heard by his high school nemesis couldn't hear him but his two best friends could. They all three contained their chuckles, avoiding any unwanted attention.

"Yeah, cool," Star said, sounding quite bored. "I just hope that if there are multiple massage tables that I'm not next to some old guy. Or worse yet, some disgusting nerd. I can see my worst nightmare becoming reality, stuck in the same room as some messed up goth girl—" she didn't name names, but Sam knew she was talking about her "—for an hour that should be relaxing."

Sam made some comment under her breath about not being caught dead in that place, but not even Danny and Tucker could really hear it.

"Oh, no problem," the cheerleader captain piped, clasping her hands in front of her. "Mi papa says that I am special and should get only the best, so he reserved the entire place today for only me and people I decide to let in." Turning to table behind her, she gave Valerie one of her clueless smiles and said, "I know you aren't as cool now that you don't have money and such, but you can come too." She didn't even seem to notice that she had poked at the other girl's insecurities with her insensitive remark.

For some reason, that seemed to dampen Dash's spirits a bit. The reason was soon articulated, as he said, "That means there won't be any nerds to wail on. I guess I'll just have to swim in the pool and work out on the indoor football field. And maybe get a nice massage."

Tired of listening to the conversation, Danny turned back to his food and his friends. "Just what kind of spa is this place? I mean, an indoor pool and football field? A tanning salon, tattoo parlor, and even swirly toilets? It sounds more like a heaven for the popular kids than a spa."

"Beautique is supposed to have everything related to health and beauty," Sam stated, annoyance lacing her words. Folding her arms, the ultra-recyclo-vegetarian glared down at what was left of her veggie wrap, all this spa talk ruining her appetite. It only took her a few seconds to feel her friends' prying eyes on her and she looked up into their incredulous stares. "What?" she asked.

"And just how do you know all that?" Danny asked, clearly recalling how just a minute before she had muttered under her breath that she wouldn't be caught dead in the place.

Scoffing at them and shaking her head, she replied with, "It's my mom. She's been obsessing about the place for weeks. Rambling on about all the features it has, including a fitness center and low-calorie restaurant. Although it did sound like they had a good salad bar." At that point Danny started to chuckle, earning him one of Sam's disapproving glares. "Oh, so I can't find one thing I might like about the place?" she asked.

Shaking his head, Danny was saved from having to reply by the bell. "Oh, time for class!" he called, rushing off before the dark-haired girl could protest.

As the doors to the cafeteria were swinging shut, Sam stood, pointing a finger in her best friend's general direction and shouting, "This isn't over Danny!" Snatching her bag, she stomped out after him, leaving an embarrassed Tucker behind. Chuckling nervously, he bolted after them.

* * *

Danny was a little tired the next day, and let out a big yawn as he walked down the hallway to his locker. Lazily turning the dial until the last number clicked into place, he opened the locker and swapped his books around. Rubbing the last of the sleep out of his eyes, he was caught off guard by Sam when she finally spoke up.

"Long night?" she asked, showing no signs of fatigue herself. Tucker was standing just to her left, fiddling with the latest gadget on his PDA.

Nodding and closing his locker door, he said as they started toward their first period class, "I had just gotten to sleep when an overly obnoxious 'BEWARE!' woke me. I then had to spend two hours chasing the box ghost down and returning all the boxes he stole. I still need to find where the manikin goes, though. No matter where I look I just can't seem to figure out where it might have come from."

Having chuckled at the mention of their least threatening enemy, Sam's expression changed to thoughtful at the mention of Danny's weird cargo. "It was in one of the boxes the Box Ghost took?" she asked. At her half-ghost friend's affirming nod, she continued, "Did the box have a business name on it?" A shake to mean no. "What about a shipping label? A return address?"

"Nope and nope," Danny replied, backing up into the classroom door to open it and still be able to talk to goth girl and techno geek, although the latter was too interested in his PDA to take much notice. "It was just a plain brown box with clear packing tape down the seem. Kind of scared me when I first opened it because I thought it was a dismembered body or something. I put in my dad's shed since he almost never goes in there."

"You'll have to let me see it after school," Sam said, taking her seat and retrieving her homework from her spider backpack. Danny's seat was right next to her and the window, while Tucker sat just behind him, both getting out their homework as well. "Maybe we can figure out who it belongs to. If it has a serial number Tucker might be able to track it using that."

Looking up only at the mention of his name, the technology-loving teen quickly went over what parts of the conversation he could remember. "Tracking it should be easy," he said, holding up his favorite device. "So long as it isn't stolen or something this baby should be able to tell us exactly where it is meant to be," he continued, smiling widely, although whether it was at them or his 'baby' neither teen was entirely sure. Maybe it was both; Tucker did love his tech.

Taking the heavy textbook he needed for this class out of his bag and setting it down on his desk, the young hero asked, "Now that that conversation is done, how was your night?"

"Uneventful," Tucker replied, putting his PDA away as the late bell rang. If he was caught playing with it it would get taken away until the end of the day, at least. If he was unlucky it'd get put in the June Drawer, and he wouldn't get it until the end of the school year, and the school year had just started! "I promise I will take you out of there just as soon as I can," he said to it as he gently placed it in a side pouch on his bag. "I pretty much just went up to my room and messed around on my computer after I got back from patrolling with you two."

Sighing, Sam said, "I'm afraid I wasn't quite so lucky. Mom was already in a sour mood, so when she caught me coming in late I got chewed out for it." Resting her elbow on her desk and her chin in her hand, the strictly vegan girl continued, "She started by venting her 'displeasure,' she insisted on that word when I told her not to be angry at me for something I didn't do, at 'the spoiled, immature brat,' her exact words, by the way, that was hogging the new spa. She then told me that I should act more like a lady and not be out so late with boys." It was obvious by this point that Sam was fuming, so when she didn't proceed any more neither pushed her to continue. They could tell she was purposely leaving details out, but she didn't feel like relaying to them the insults her mother had shot towards Danny; apparently she still didn't like him much…

"Yeah, my mom and sister weren't too happy about the spa being reserved either," Danny said, trying to break the awkward silence trying to fall over them. "When Mom told him she was disappointed about it he immediately asked if there were ghosts there." That got a laugh out of his friends, all three of them finding Jack's enthusiasm hilarious. "That got Mom going off about how not everything has to do with ghosts and then she stormed off. That was before the patrol, though. She had already gone to bed and Dad was in the lab when I got back."

"Lucky," Sam jested playfully, showing she wasn't quite as dour as she appeared. "There are times I wish I had ghost powers so I could just faze through a wall into my room and avoid my parents all together." An unspoken 'be careful what you wish for' was transmitted between Tucker and Danny, both remembering quite vividly the time the former had actually made such a wish.

Chuckling a little, Danny quipped back quietly, "It's not all fun and games, you know. Putting aside the saving the day thing and keeping it a secret that I have ghost powers and listening to my parents say everyday how they are going to tear me apart molecule by molecule, there are other problems, too. Like yesterday, right after I got home from school Jazz jumped me. She wanted me to faze her into Beautique since she couldn't get in through the front door."

"Wow, you're not talking about uptight Jazz, are you? Miss perfect, can-never-break-the-rules Jazz?" Sam asked, more than a little aware of her best friend's sister ritualistic adherence to rules.

Danny nodded, getting a couple light chuckles from the two people listening to him. He had to admit that being unpopular did have its advantages, like being able to talk about stuff like this without having to worry about eavesdroppers. "Yeah, I know," he said, glancing to the front of the classroom to make sure Mr. Lancer was more interested in the blackboard than his students. "I was quite surprised by it too. She must have really wanted to go."

There was no chance for a reply to be given because at that time their bald-headed teacher started around the classroom gathering assignments. He stopped for a second between Danny and Sam, looking down at the former and saying, "Next time I catch you two talking in class I will give you your first warning. I'm guessing you have not forgotten over the summer that three warnings a month equal a detention. Class is for learning, not chatting with friends."

Finding the situation very unfair, Sam gave Mr. Lancer a very incredulous look. "Dash is almost always talking in class. Why doesn't he get the same lecture?" she asked, a small hint of frustration in her voice.

"Dash also stole us a win with thirty second left on the clock at the last game, Ms. Manson, and as such is granted some leniency," he replied, snatching up her paper. He then continued down the lines of desks.

And it was at times like that that Danny wished he didn't have to keep his powers a secret. After all, he figured that saving all of Amity Park was a little more important than winning a single game of football. But it was a secret and would remain as such, leaving only a few people with the knowledge of the good he was doing. He knew he was a hero, and that was all that matter. Those were Sam's words just a few weeks ago after he narrowly made it away from Valerie and he debated on telling her the truth so she would stop shooting at him.

Not wanting to get caught talking again, the young half-ghost scribbled something down on a piece of paper and handed it to Sam. Opening it, she couldn't disagree; _There is no use arguing with an idiot trying to fit in with the popular crowd_.

All three of the friends were quite surprised when they didn't hear some dumb comeback from the blonde-haired jock. It was also at that point that they realized they hadn't actually heard him chatting with his football buddy or the captain of the cheerleaders at all that class period, and as Mr. Lancer start droning on he seemed more interested in his desk than his friends. He wasn't the only one, too. The entire popular squad seemed unusually listless.

Getting up as the bell rang, Danny had half expected to be stopped at the door. Groaning quietly as Dash stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, the slender boy tried to not let his annoyance show on his face. Pointing his finger right in Danny's face, the football star growled, "If I wasn't so exhausted from working out yesterday I would give you a beat down and shove you in a locker for what your girlfriend said in class today."

Danny's immediate response was, "She's not my girlfriend."

Which was chorused by a, "I'm not his girlfriend," from Sam.

"Yeah, whatever," Dash said, his tone no less menacing for his weariness. "Just so you know, I'm holding you responsible for anything she says." The jock then stomped off towards his next class, which luckily the three friends did not have with him.

He sighed to himself as Sam and Tucker caught up with him, both giving him apologetic looks. "Am I ever going to graduate from being his favorite?" Danny asked, fazing a hand through his bag and grabbing his book, then through his locker door and putting it away. He had done this enough times to know exactly where everything was, and only did this when the hallway was empty. Grabbing the book he needed, they then continued on to their next class, both Sam and Tucker already carrying what they needed. "I mean, couldn't Dash find a different hobby, like rescuing kittens or something?"

"Just face it Danny," Tucker started, acting very matter-of-factly, "You'll have to deal with Dash's taunts until we graduate."

Groaning much like he had just a minute before, Danny asked, "Aren't you supposed to be my friend?"

* * *

After class the three made their way to their usual hangout. Unless some ghost showed up on their way there they figured they would probably beat the main torrent of students that swarmed the Nasty Burger immediately after school let out. "BEWARE!" Something just had to come up…

"I thought you caught him last night," Sam sighed dejectedly, rubbing her eyes tiredly. The Box Ghost was really nothing more than a nuisance, so he had that tiring affect on people.

Shaking his head at the futility of it, Danny replied, "I did, but I released him back into the ghost zone. It's not like I can leave him in the Fenton Thermos." Both of his friends gave him the same look, and he scoffed at the. "Okay, so technically I could, and I won't deny that it has crossed my mind at times, but still, I can't, you know?"

"Yeah, we know," Sam said, unzipping Danny's backpack and pulling out the Fenton Thermos. "So, whose turn is it this time?" she asked.

The blue ghost in overalls was glaring down at them by this point, none-too-pleased with how he was being treated. "You will learn to fear me!" he shouted, a distinct drawl prolonging the syllables and lengthening his words. "You will wish you never decided to ignore the Box Ghost! Now, taste my cardboard fury!" Grinning like an idiot trying to be evil, the blue clad ghost levitated a small box over his head.

"I think it's Tucker's turn now," Danny replied, not paying any attention to what was going on behind him.

"I think Sam captured him last, so it's your turn, Danny," Tucker replied.

"Yeah, but I caught him last night, so that should count as my turn," the ghost-boy stated. Kind of sad that they were arguing over who had to catch a ghost, but it was the Box Ghost…

Glaring at them now, the Box Ghost shouted, "I said, taste my cardboard fury!" The box he was controlling flew down and planted itself on Danny's head, doing nothing more than blocking his vision.

Grumbling as if he was being made to take out the trash or something, Tucker took the thermos from his best friend's hand and said, "Fine, I'll capture him this time." The Box Ghost didn't even try to dodge the blue beam that shot out of the cylinder in Tucker's hand, but he still cursed them for capturing him as he was pulled into it.

Taking the box off his head, Danny threw it into a garbage can as Tucker put the Fenton Thermos back in his bag. "You know, that kind of reminds me of Dash's bullying," Danny commented as they walked down the street towards the Nasty Burger. "Nothing but annoying."

"Yeah, I'd say," Sam agreed. "Now let's get in before all the seats are… taken…?" Opening the door to the Nasty Burger, they were greeted by a bleakness they were unfamiliar with. There were maybe five other people in the building, and three of them worked there. Looking back outside, they confirmed that nope, no one could be seen coming down the sidewalk towards the place. "Where is everybody?" the goth girl asked, waving a small hello at the girl behind the counter who asked if they wanted the usual.

"They're all at that new places that opened up," another worker said, leaning on the counter. "Beautique, was it called? I wanted to go check it out myself, but I have work today. Oh well, I guess that it'll still be there tomorrow."

Picking up their orders, and for once not having to wait ten minutes for it, they made their way over to their usual table. "That place sure is popular," Tucker stated, taking a huge bite out of his all meat (with just a little bit of grain for the bun) meal.

"Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen this place so dead," Danny remarked, looking around at all the empty tables and booths.

"Please don't remind me," the girl who had taken their order asked monotonously, obviously bored with what little work she did have while washing an already clean table.

"Well, this used to be pretty much the only place to hang out," Sam added, leaning back in her seat all relaxed. "Just give it a few days for the newness to wear off and this place will be packed again, so let's enjoy the solitude while it lasts."

* * *

Five days later things only seemed to get worse. Despite all of Tucker's best efforts he hadn't been able to track down where the strange manikin had come from, and as they walked through the halls the three friends couldn't help but notice the horrifying change in their fellow students. Opening his locker door and motioning for his two friends to come around it so he could talk to them, Danny asked, "What is wrong with everyone. I mean, I'm half dead but I look more alive than they do."

"I don't know," Sam said, stifling a yawn. "My mom has been acting the same way. She actually fell asleep—" another yawn made her pause "—while making breakfast this morning. She nearly fell face first into the frying pan."

"My parents have both been a little flaky like that, too," Tucker stated, leaning against the lockers. "My dad actually skipped work today. He never does that, unless he is sick, which I know he isn't." At Danny's raised eyebrow he added, "If Dad was sick my entire family would be. That's kind of how it works."

A third yawn from Sam drew her two companions' attention. Noticing their inquisitive stares, she asked indignantly, "What?"

"Are you okay, Sam?" Danny asked, closing his locker and leading the way to their first period. "You've been yawning a lot lately. First Jazz, and now you?"

"I'm just a little tired, is all," she replied, rubbing sleep from her violet eyes. "I just kind of feel like the energy has been drained from me is all."

Danny stopped suddenly, the girl behind him smacking into his back. Something clicked in his mind and he glanced around the hallway a second time. Finally recovering from her unexpected collision with her best friend and crush, Sam swung him around with as much anger as she could muster in her debilitated state. "What's the big deal, Danny?" she asked, irritation thick in her words. "Warn someone when you are going to stop so abruptly."

"Just look around us," he said cryptically, motioning wide with his arms. "Just look at Sam. Doesn't this all seem vaguely familiar to you?" Both of his friends wracked their brains for a moment, but neither seemed to come up with anything because they didn't answer. Instead, they looked at each other as if they were asking if Danny had gone crazy. "Think back to Spirit Week!" the half-ghost specified, and the same thing seemed to click in their minds as well. "If I didn't know any better I'd think Spectra was behind this."

"But where is she?" Tucker asked, jumping a little as the bell rang to signal everyone to get to class. "We haven't received a new school counselor, and even if we had no one has been to see them."

Scoffing at her beret-wearing friend, Sam replied, "Use your head for once. Where else would Spectra be that would allow her to sap the energy from every person in Amity Park? The only possible explanation is she is in Beautique. Pretty much everyone has been going there."

"Then what about you?" Danny asked, taking his seat.

Sighing and looking away from him, Sam mumbled under her breath, "Yeah, I've been there too." She could see him hiding a laugh under his hand, so she clarified in a louder voice, "My mom dragged me there to try their veggie wrap is all."

Tapping a few things into his PDA, Tucker started, "Okay, so I can set us an appointment if you want."

Smiling mischievously, Danny replied with, "Who needs an appointment when you can walk through walls? Just let me go back home first to pick up a few things." Smirking to each other for just a short moment, they quickly put their attention back to the front of the classroom as the late bell rang and Mr. Lancer walked into the room. He seemed very displeased about something, and it wasn't hard to tell what it was; three-fourths of the class was either not present or asleep on their desks. It took another ten minutes or so for the last of the stragglers to file in. Looking at each other worriedly, Team Phantom started to wonder if fighting Spectra could wait another eight hours.

The sorry state of the students made school get out early. What normally would have lunch became the end of the school day. "I think I'll go and have my pores opened before I go home," Paulina said, voice heavy with weariness.

"I'm gonna see if I can get Bertra to give me a nice massage," Star added, both girls walking by the three ghost fighters sluggishly.

"Great, just what we need," Sam muttered, glaring at the two girls' departing forms. "Stupid popular kids getting in the way.

Walking around the edge of the school so no one would see him change, Danny willed the twin rings to appear around his body, traveling up and down and morphing his normal jeans and white and red shirt and shoes into a black and white hazmat suit, the stylized DP on the front in shining white. "You two head to Beautique and wait for me around back," he said, voice containing that faint ghostly echo. "I'll go home and grab a few things and meet you there. We need to get this over with fast. The more energy she absorbs the stronger she gets."

Nodding their consent, they watched as Danny fly off. Legs evaporating into a translucent tail, the boy-turned-ghost sped through the sky at his fastest speed, which they had clocked at around 147 miles-per-hour last time they checked. Coming to the very distinguishable building that was his house, Danny fazed right down through the roof and into his room. Pulling a box out from under his bed, he delved into it and retrieved a couple pairs of Fenton Phones and Exto-guns (wouldn't do to be caught with the latter at school). He had just decided that it might be a good idea to grab a Jack-o-Nine-Tails when he heard someone at his bedroom door. Quickly changing back into Danny, he stood and turned around in one fluid movement, tossing the items in his hands back in the box and kicking it under his bed.

Looking as if she had just run a marathon, Maddie Fenton leaned in through the half-open door. "Danny, when did you get home?" she asked, confusion written on her face.

"Just now," her son said, smiling nervously. Her fatigue was not lost on him, though, and his next words were wrapped with worry and tied in a bow with suppressed fear. "Are you okay, Mom?"

Looking as if she was still trying to figure out how her son could be home, it took the woman a moment to reply. "Yeah, I'm fine dear," she started, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm just a little worn out from that fitness room they have at that new spa that opened up down the road. I would have been in there to check it out sooner, but your dad broke the Specter Speeder and I had to help him fix it."

Grimacing at the fact his mom was now one of Spectra's victims, too, he rushed over to her and started pushing her out the door. "Well, if you're tired you should go lie down and rest," Danny said, hurrying his mother down the hallway and into her bedroom. "Now get in bed and get some sleep. I'm going to go hang out with Sam and Tucker, so I'll see you later!" Closing the door before the blue jumpsuited woman could reply he rushed back to his room and left his mother in her sleep-hazed confusion.

"We were beginning to wonder if you were going to make it," Sam quipped as Danny landed in front of them.

Handing them the gear, including a thermos for each of them and the Jack-o-Nine-Tails for Sam, Danny said, "My mom's been here now, too. She walked in on me when I was getting this stuff so I had to get rid of her first. Luckily for me she isn't thinking clearly or I might have been busted. She caught me upstairs when I'm pretty sure she was probably in the living room the entire time." They already had Specter Deflectors on, just turned off so they wouldn't zap their half-ghost friend.

"Ooh, close one," Sam chuckled, taking Danny's hand when he offered it. She felt the intangibility creep up her arm and through her body, a slightly tingly sensation that sent small chills up her spine.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Amity Park's hero scoffed at himself. "Had I thought about it I would have just gone invisible." Flying right through solid concrete with his two friends in tow, they came out in what appeared to be a massage room. There were several tables covered in white cloth with a hole in one side where a person would put their face. There was a single attendant at the other end, but she didn't seem to notice the three suddenly appear through a wall.

Calmly walking over to her and turning her belt on as a matter of caution, Sam only managed to get out a, "Hey there—" before being cut off. The woman's eyes looked dead and it creeped out even the normally dark teenager.

"Do you want a massage?" the woman asked, voice a little too innocent and naïve. When none of them answered, she asked again, "Do you want a massage?"

Stepping forward, Danny said confidently, "We want to see Spectra." And suddenly something changed in the masseuse. Innocent face twisting into something feral, she launched herself at the fifteen-year-old, manicured nails resembling something along the lines of claws. Jumping backwards out of the way, she landed with a hollow thud on the hardwood floor.

Just as her head turned up at him at an impossible angle, a green beam shot her from the side, knocking her a couple feet to the left before she came to a complete stop. "That was just creepy," Sam said, echoing her friends' thoughts. Then a wisp of grey smoke rose from the girl's body, vanishing into thin air. The three friends couldn't help but be confused until a second later the image of the beautiful young masseuse also faded into thin air, leaving behind something very familiar.

"The manikin!" they said in unison.

"The manikin in your shed came from here," Sam continued, seemingly completely recovered from her earlier fatigue. "Spectra is somehow using them as puppets."

"Yes, very good," a very familiar voice answered. Danny could still remember the taunted it had thrown at him those first times they fought, but turning to face it he couldn't help but laugh as it came out of a woman's mouth. Such a thing just couldn't be anything but funny. Growling at him, Bertra quickly morphed into Bertrand's favorite form, a green ectoplasmic wolf. "Is this better?" he asked.

Jumping in front of their white-haired companion, the two humans drew their ecto-weapons and aimed at Spectra's helper. Glancing back over her shoulder, Sam shouted, "You go after Spectra! We'll handle her pet." Smiling at her and nodding his head, Danny quickly flew off to find the ring leader of this little parade.

"Pet?" Bertrand asked, distaste clinging to his words. "The least you could do is call me a servant." Leaping right at the black-haired girl, his claws found nothing but empty air as she rolled to the side, bringing her anti-ghost weapon up and firing a couple shots. The shape shifter had no plans of holding still either, though, and easily dodged the two blasts. Throwing himself at Tucker this time, he hit his target, the tech savvy nerd not nearly as athletic as his dark clad friend. A quick shot from her ecto-gun chased him away, though it still managed to miss. "Is that the best you can do?" he teased, crouching down and lagging his tail high in the air in a come-and-get-me pose.

"Not even close," Sam smirked, firing a blast way to her target's right.

Blinking a couple times, the ghost wolf sat down at started laughing. "You really need to improve your aim," he mocked, holding his stomach with one paw.

Sending Tucker a look that queued him in on what the plan was, Sam jested back, "Are you sure of that?" Both her and Tucker let off another couple rounds, all of them hitting wide of their target.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure," Bertrand replied, lazily standing and stretching. "Now, I think it is time we finish this—" A loud cracking sound cut him off, the green wolf looking up in confusion as the roof collapsed on him.

Chuckling to herself and blowing non-existent ecto-smoke from the barrel of her gun, Sam stated, "We were taking out the support beams. And now you are trapped and can't dodge this." Taking out her Fenton Thermos, Sam sucked Spectra's assistant into it. "Now let's go help Danny!"

Weaving through halls and fazing through anything in his way, Danny quickly searched the building for his opponent. He passed by one particular door, but something told him to stop and look inside. Spectra was sitting beside a metal table with a blonde person on it, and she seemed to be holding a pen of some sort in her hand. It took him only a few seconds to realize this was the tattoo parlor, and that had to be Dash. Rushing in there would be a bit bittersweet, but even Dash deserved to be save.

Bursting through the doors, Danny pointed one gloved finger at the crazy redhead and declared, "You let him go right now, Spectra!"

The ghost turned her eyes up at him, a sadistic smirk in them, but it didn't even seem to register with her patient that someone had just entered the room. "I'm with someone else right now," she said in that sickeningly cheery tone of her. "I'm afraid you are a little early, Danny, so you will have to wait. Take care of him for now," she said, snapping her fingers. Several people appeared from what seemed like nowhere, all grabbing an arm or a leg or a waist before the young male could react.

"Penny, is this going to hurt?" Dash asked, sounding a bit dazed.

"Only a tiny bit," Spectra cheered, "but it won't last long. So just hold still."

Struggling against his restraints, Danny realized he didn't have much chance of moving them. Aside from using his powers on them it didn't seem like he would get away. Sighing and shaking his head at his own forgetfulness, the ghost-boy reached inside himself until he felt the intense cold of his core. They were just manikins, and thus—ice started forming on the surfaces that were physically touching the teenager—he could simply freeze them and break free. Busting through the arms holding him back, Danny sent a ghost ray at his enemy, knocking the tattooing needle from her hand.

Turning to him in anger, Spectra let out something halfway between a scream and a growl as she watched the energy evaporating from the busted manikins. "Do you realize how much of a pain it is to animate those?" she asked angrily. "While it only requires a small amount of energy it is still time consuming to bind the two together and get them to move."

"If you were worried about them breaking you should have played better with your toys," Danny ridiculed, watching curiously as a wisp of grey energy materialized over Dash and was pulled into him mouth by an inhale.

Stars circling his head, the blonde-haired football player seemed to finally return to his senses. He took one long look around the room, stopping at the tattooing needle. Breathing a little heavier, he quickly jumped down from the table and started to run. "I don't like needles!" could be heard getting quieter and quieter as he run from the building.

"I see," Danny said, facing Spectra again. "The energy used to move those dolls will get returned to the people it was taken from. And it lets them return to their senses and have the mind to get out of here."

Gritting her teeth and growling at the half-ghost, Spectra shot a ghost ray out of each hand at him and shouted, "Why must you always get in the way? All I want is eternal youth and beauty."

Dodging the green beams of energy and firing a couple of his own in retaliation, Danny shot back, "And let you take that at the expense of others? I don't think so. You will give back everything you've stolen from these people, or I will make you."

Smiling wickedly, the ghost councilor asked, "Oh, but you seem to be forgetting something. I have an army—" she snapped her fingers and ten manikins marched to the door leading into the parlor "—so where is yours?"

"Right here!" a female voice yelled, nine whips wrapping themselves around the group of human-looking dolls. It continued to squeeze them together until their wooden frames cracked and broke, the illusions fading and leaving behind nothing but a pile of firewood. Climbing up on top of the mound with a cockiness like she had just climbed a mountain, Sam held up her Fenton Thermos and said, "Oh, and your little pet is right in here, so he can't help you either."

"Sam, Tucker, you need to destroy all the manikins. It will give the energy back that was stolen," Danny said, looking back over his shoulder. Which was a bad idea because that left him open for a nice ghost ray in the back of the head. Flying end over end, he came to an abrupt halt in a concrete wall on the other side of the lobby.

"Danny!" Sam yelled, worried despite the fact that he had taken ten times worse before without injury.

Rubbing his head and pulling himself out of the crack his body had made in the solid wall, he said, "I'm fine, Sam, don't worry about me. Go handle those manikins. I'll take out Spectra."

"Strong words, child, but can you back it up?" the woman asked, flying up so they both were floating above the lobby. Throwing more ghost energy at the teenage hero, Spectra didn't seem to care that each attack chipped away at her meticulously kept compound. Chunks started falling from the ceiling, vases destroyed and chairs overturned as Danny did nothing but weave around things and avoid her attacks. Sticking his tongue out at her to egg her on more, he then fazed through a wall and into a different part of the building.

Quite pleased to see that she had followed him, Danny started his counter attack. The large ghost ray was an unexpected surprise to her as she came out on the other side. The wood gave way behind her, splintering away as she was flung back by the force of his attack. Quickly righting herself, Spectra flew back through the hole she had created into the football field, but Danny was no longer there.

A green beam shot up out of the ground as Danny fazed up through it, catching his opponent by surprise again. This time she hit the glass roof hard, but didn't go through it. Countering with a ghost ray of her own, she managed to catch Danny right in the chest.

Flying back a few feet, the fifteen-year-old was quite surprised it didn't have even half as much force in it as the first attack that hit him. She was weakening, and he guessed it was from Sam and Tucker's efforts. Flying up so they were at the same level, it was then that Danny took the time to notice the age lines appearing on Spectra's skin. "You really should cut down stress in your life," he jested, throwing an ecto-laden punch at her. "It's starting to age you. So, why don't you just give up and go back quietly?"

Finding she could barely dodge the attack, Spectra looked around frantically for some kind of escape. Instead what she saw was the blue light of a Fenton Thermos shoot through the air and catch her from below. She couldn't help be scream as her deteriorating body was sucked into that stupid, extremely small container.

Floating down and landing silently beside his best friend, Danny clapped Tucker on the back. "Good job," he said, looking back over his shoulder at the third member of their group. "You get them all?"

"I'm pretty sure," Sam replied, replacing the Jack-o-Nine-Tails on her belt. "Quite a number you guys did on this place."

"Well, it's not like it will be used now that its owner is being sent back to the ghost zone," Danny replied, looking around at the carnage. "Although, with all the commotion we had to have caused the police will probably be here soon."

Turning off her Specter Deflector, Sam chuckled, "I agree, let's get out of here."

Taking their hands, the two humans for a second time that day felt the strange tingling of intangibility flood through them. Also going invisible, Danny flew up through the roof and headed back towards home, eager to get rid of their cargo and check up on his mother and sister.

* * *

"I still can't believe Beautique closed down," Paulina sighed over he burger. "I mean, it was barely open a week and then it closed."

"I heard some ghost attacked it and scared the owner off," Star commented, then turned to the jock sitting on her other side. "Say, did you ever get that tattoo?"

Shaking his head, Dash replied coolly with, "No. They closed down before I decide what to get."

"I still can't believe they don't remember anything," Sam said to the boys across from her.

"Selective memory, probably," Danny replied, taking a big bite out of his burger. He couldn't help but find Dash's excuse for not getting a tattoo amusing. After all, he had been there when the athlete ran out of there screaming like a girl; not that he could tell him that since it was supposed to be Danny Phantom that saw it and not Danny Fenton.

Sighing and putting down his PDA, Tucker looked around the Nasty Burger and said, "You know, there is one thing I will miss about Beautique. This place is crowded again." Laughing, neither of his friends could disagree.

* * *

Looking through it, I think part of the extra length in this can be accounted for in the extra intrapersonal detail I don't think I put in the other one. Any thoughts on it would be appreciated.


	3. Episode 54: Seeing is Believing

I'm a little late getting this one out. I had meant to have it up on Thursday... and, uh, it's kind of Monday now... But I got it up, and I gift you with about 6500 words. :)

**I do not own Danny Phantom :'(  
**

* * *

**Episode 54: Seeing is Believing**

The night air rushed through his snowy hair. A large full moon and bright stars illuminated the streets far below him, the natural sky still visible because of the lack of neon signs and late night businesses in Amity Park. Everything was closed and most people were asleep in bed already, the only signs of life being the two teenagers on motor scooters and the young boy flying through the sky. Wait; did he say signs of life? Ironic, since both him and his prospective targets were not technically alive.

"Looks like things are going to be quiet tonight," the dark-haired girl said, one hand reaching up to press the com button on the green hands-free device in her ear. The Fenton Phones really were a good way for the three friends to communicate when they were on different sides of the city, allowing them to cover more ground faster and thus get home in time to get a decent amount of sleep before the next day of school.

"Nothing over here either, Danny," the red beret-wearing boy stated, struggling slightly to press his own com button while not dropping the PDA in his hand. "I've been to family reunions more exciting than this, and most of my family is over sixty-years-old."

Coming to a stop, his translucent tail forming into two legs, Danny replied back to them, "I think we might be able to get home before midnight tonight. So long as nothing shows up in the next five minutes—" he exhaled a stream of icy breath, his heavy sigh echoing in his Fenton Phone. "Spoke too soon…" he groaned, looking around for what had set off his ghost sense. Drifting down to street level, he glared unamusedly at the three, slightly-glowing figures he could see through the large windows. Green skin, red cape, black spiked hair, tattoos, he knew her well enough for his liking. Lydia was flanked by three other ghosts, a female ghost dressed in red as well with an eye patch on one side and a really short ghost next to a really tall, muscular ghost on the other side. The last time he had seen them all together was when Freakshow had them, and him, under his control. His power orb was broken, though, so that meant these ghosts were working of their own accord, and he had no regrets doing this…

Fazing through the locked front door, he said confidently, "I'm sorry to tell you guys, but the bank is closed for the night. If you wish to make a withdrawal I must ask you to please return during normal business hours and only take from your own account, thank you." He was rewarded with a heavy bag of coins being thrown at him and hitting him in the chest, sending him flying backwards into a waiting room couch. "Geez, throwing money away when we're in a recession," he grumbled, rubbing the back of his head as he pulled himself out of broken wood and cloth furniture. _Note to self, pay more attention to the battle than the witty banter_, he thought, walking back so he was between the four ghosts and the _normal_ entrance, not that ghosts needed to use a door. Besides, it wasn't like they said much. "So, are you going to drop the bags and get in the thermos or do I need to start kicking your butts?"

The four, green-skinned ghosts looked at each other then dropped the bags, quickly turning intangible and flying up through the ceiling. Sighing, Danny couldn't help but wonder if anyone—other than the Box Ghost—could ever make this easy before going intangible himself and following them into the sky.

Either they were flying slow or he was simply faster than them, for the white-haired half ghost was in front of them before they had even gotten one hundred yards above the building. Smiling confidently, Danny extended on hand out towards them and shot a ghost ray right into the red clad ghost's chest, sending her back down into the roof of the bank. Lydia and the other two ghost stupidly turned to watch her fall, leaving their backs open for the next two ghost rays, which his Tally and Shorty in turn and sent them on a similar path as their companion. Lydia seemed to gain some sense at that point and 'threw' a bat tattoo at Amity Park's hero. As he frustratedly swatted at the annoying thing, the rest of her tattoos swirled around her in a green and black tornado. Clearing after a few seconds, she was gone.

Exhaling in frustration, Danny floated down to the bank roof just as the first ghost was starting to recover from the hit. Taking the Fenton Thermos off of his belt, he sucked the three ghosts into the blue beam and replaced the top before flying off again, leaving the three, human shaped craters behind.

"You okay, Danny?" Sam's voice asked in his ear.

Smiling despite himself, the half-ghost replied, "Yeah, it was just Lydia and her crew. Got three out of four in the thermos, but tattoo girl herself got away. I don't think I'll have to worry about her for a while, though. She was pretty eager to escape."

"That's good," Tucker replied, followed by what sounded like a yawn. "Unless you think there will be any more fun tonight we should be getting home. I was up way too late last night messing around with my PDA and could use some sleep."

Chuckling at his best friend's love of technology, Danny said, "I don't think there will be anything else tonight. Let's go home guys." There was the soft affirmation from the other two teenagers, then Danny took off towards his home.

Stepping out from behind a billboard, the only things that could be made out on the dark figure were the bright, glowing, yellow eyes, and the creepily calm smile.

* * *

The bell rang signaling the end of the school day, the three friends casually walked down the few steps leading to the school and continued down the street in the direction of the Nasty Burger. "I still can't believe that Mr. Lancer wants us to do a seven page paper on the Holocaust," Sam complained, shifting the overly heavy spider backpack on her shoulder. It was bad enough that they had a stupidly long report to finish in two weeks, but all the research material needed for it was insane. And no one could do a paper on the same aspect of the Holocaust, either.

Sighing at the mere thought of all the work that would entail, and how difficult it would be to squeeze that in with all of the ghost fighting he had to do, Danny groaned, "We shouldn't have to write a novel for an assignment until we are in college, but apparently Mr. Lancer didn't get that memo. Does he think we have nothing better to do than spend hours and hours in a library, does he?"

"Well, some kids don't," Tucker replied, already looking up information on the persecution of the Gypsies on his PDA. "But it's not like we can tell Mr. Lancer that we spend our nights patrolling for ghosts and protecting Amity Park, right?"

"Yeah, if only," Danny agreed, sighing again. "It would make things a lot easier if we didn't have this secret." A few people had passed them while they were talking about top secret information, but none of them were particularly worried about being overheard. One good thing about being unpopular, people didn't butt in on your conversations.

Sam was about to say something when she noticed the icy trail coming from her blue-eyed friend's mouth. "Is it Lydia?" she asked in place of what she had been about to say.

"I'll find out," Danny said, looking around for somewhere to hide and change. Just across the street was a dark alley, and first making sure no cars were coming he ran across the street and disappeared into the shadows. A quick flash of light emanated from behind a dumpster, and then the half-ghost hero flew out from behind it and back over the two teenagers who were whistling innocently on the empty street. Handing the girl his school, Danny said with that slight ghostly echo, "I'll go see if I can find what set off my ghost sense. Save me a seat and a Nasty Burger, okay?" At her nod, he flew up to the tops of the buildings for a better view.

The white-haired teenager had figured he'd be able to spot the disturbance as soon as he had a bird's eye view, but no matter what direction he looked he say nothing. There was no Lydia, quickly looking behind him there was no Vlad, there wasn't even the Box Ghost popping up with his annoying beware. He was almost expecting Dani to suddenly blink into existence and scare him, since she seemed to be the only one who he couldn't see when invisible, but even that became less and less likely as he just floated there and the seconds ticked away. There were no screams, no alarms, no shattering glass, no anything that indicated a ghost was tormenting some random citizen or terrorizing the city.

Shaking his head and thinking that maybe whoever it was had continued on their way, Danny Phantom turned back to head towards the back alley behind the Nasty Burger to change back but found someone in his path instead. Startled, he shot back a couple feet and stiffened in preparation for a fight. "Who are you? What do you want?" he asked, looking over the strange new ghost. Her entire body was translucent and shifting in a manner similar to smoke in the wind. Fair skin was hidden underneath the long cloak that hung from her thin shoulders down to completely hide her feet, and glowing yellow eyes peered at him, one of them covered slightly by her dark hair.

A smirk on her perfectly sculpted face, she spread her arms as if saying 'this is me,' revealing a floral pattern silk dress of some kind. It looked similar to a kimono or some other oriental clothing, but Danny wasn't entirely sure. "My name is Mirage," she stated, voice soft and airy like the wind. "And what I want is for you to disappear." Twin rays of green energy shot from her open palms, their half-ghost target easily able to dodge them since he had been ready for such a cheap shot.

Firing off his own ghost ray, Danny shot back, "Nice try, but I'm used to sneak… attacks?" To say he was a little confused would be an understatement. His attack had hit, she hadn't moved at all, but instead of actually hitting her it went through her body and made a nice hole in the street below them.

Tsking and waving a finger at him as if he was a bad boy, Mirage said in a very hurt tone, "Did you seriously just try to hit a lady? Where are your manners?"

Growling and gritting his teeth, Danny shot off three more beams, each one creating another crater in the ground below them. "You're not a lady," he replied harshly, legs turning into a wispy tail as he quickly avoided a couple counter shots. "And even if you were, trying to kill me makes you forfeit your right to gentlemanly treatment."

Shaking her head and turning so that the boy was no longer behind her, the illusionary ghost said in what could only be described as a baby talk, "Someone doesn't listen very well. I never said I was trying to kill you. I just said I wanted you to disappear. And there are better, less messy ways to do that." A very ominous smile on her face, Mirage suddenly started to dissipate, truly acting like smoke in the wind. Before even had time to react she was gone, the only evidence there had ever been another ghost there the four holes below him in the sidewalk.

Sighing in frustration, the teenager-turned-ghost-hero was about to descend into the alleyway when a girl's voice rang in his ear. "Danny, what the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked irately, sounding none-too-pleased with him for some reason.

Landing before placing a hand on the com button for his Fenton Phone, he asked confusedly, "What am I doing Sam?" He figured it would probably be better to make sure his ghost half wasn't needed before he changed back into Danny Fenton.

"What do you mean 'what am I doing'?" her annoyed voice came through, a little scratchy from the fact it was through a microphone and speaker. "You are trying to take out the Nasty Burger kitchen! Stop it before you make the Nasty Sauce explode or something!"

He was attacking the Nasty Burger? Going both invisible and intangible, he quickly fazed into the back of the kitchen where the huge cylinder of Nasty Sauce was being brewed. There was no damage to the container and cooling system, but there was a perfect copy of him in the doorway leading to the main lobby that was sending green beams of ghost energy in every direction possible. "I don't remember making you," he started, hovering a foot above the ground and becoming visible again, "but I will certainly take you out of this world."

The Danny-duplicate easily dodged the ghost ray, smiling at the nice indentation it made in the wall above the door. It seemed to laugh, but no sound came out of its mouth, and all it did was dodge the next ghost ray and cryokinesis beam he threw at it, the latter of which Danny had to laugh at because the edge of it hit Dash's hand and froze it and the burger it was holding.

"Not much for conversation, are you?" Danny asked, trying a second time to freeze his look-alike. It once again dodged, but the window behind it looked it had just been struck by the strong blast of a winter storm. Looking around at the small amount of destruction their battle had caused, the doppelganger smirked and vanished, possibly going invisible and fleeing but it seemed more like it disintegrated into smoke or steam. "Goodbye?"

Seeing the patrons of the Nasty Burger recovering and knowing that soon he would be mobbed, he fazed back into the alley and shifted back into Danny Fenton, the dual white rings vanishing just as the door opened and Dash (with his hand still frozen) burst from it. "Fentoenail? What are you doing here?" he asked, eyes narrowed in that customary glare he gave the smaller teen. "Oh, forget that, I'm looking for Danny Phantom. Did you see him?"

Pointing towards the open street, Danny said, "He went that way," sounding a little unsure of it. In an instant around twenty people started stampeding down the alley, leaving the very unpopular kid behind. Slipping in through the back, he made his way through to some of the only people left in the building.

"So what was all that about?" Sam asked as he took a seat, taking his bag and stuffing the Fenton Thermos back in it before picking up the burger his two friends had gotten him.

"I'm not sure," he admitted, taking a small bite and swallowing it. "But I do know that we have a new ghost to add to our files. She called herself Mirage. The strange thing is, none of my attacks seemed to hit her. They just kind of… went through without touching her at all…"

"We'll figure it out later," Tucker said, waving his PDA at the ghost-child. "For now we should finish up and then hit the books. Those stupid reports aren't going to do themselves and we devote whatever extra time we have to doing them." Letting out a groan and taking a gracious bite so he wouldn't have to speak, Danny had to agree with his best guy friend.

* * *

"Any leads on that other Danny yet?" Sam asked her beret-wearing companion.

"Nope, nothing," the fifteen-year-old answered, scrolling through some notes on his PDA. "No sightings of any Danny except our own since that one attack the Nasty Burger two days ago."

Almost two whole days had passed with no signs of Mirage or the other Danny, which was both refreshing and unnerving. He knew both had to still be out there, but going two days without having to fight ghosts in any way had freed him up to start on Mr. Lancer's assignment. He had already written one page of it! Still, spending every minute of free time on that instead of out with Sam and Tucker or flying leisurely through the sky was kind of depressing.

A scream was what drew his attention towards the library, the door flying open and Star running out in a panic, followed by the librarian. Peaking through the circular window, Danny once again saw himself terrorizing innocent people and, this time, books. Diving into an empty classroom across the hall, the white rings appeared around his waist and changed his t-shirt and jeans into a black and white jumpsuit, hair turning white and eyes glowing green. Determination in those emerald pools, he flew through the walls passed Tucker, snatching the thermos as he went through the library door, and stopped just behind the fake Danny. It looked back over its shoulder and smiled evilly again, the wickedness portrayed in the simple gesture nearly sending chills down the half-ghost's spine, which was kind of ironic since cold hadn't affected him since he had gained control of his cryokinetic powers.

"Well, at least you got one thing right," Danny jested, his posture tall and confident and his arms folded across his chest. Bending his wrist backwards just enough that he could point one finger at his opponent, he whispered as a small ghost ray fired from his finger, "Keep your voice down in the library."

Again using its silent laugh, it avoided the simple beam and watched a book sitting on the table get turned into dust. Clapping its hands, which oddly enough also didn't make any noise, Danny's double gave an attack of its own this time. A green beam shooting from its eyes, the feeble thing was easily absorbed by the small, square shield erected by a swipe of Danny's hand. A second and third attempt had the exact same results, and Danny was starting to grow a little bored of the game.

Extending one hand towards the other Danny, he shot a ghost ray at the boy that hit a bookshelf instead. Glaring when he was once again dodged and the other ghost took off between rows of tall shelves. Quickly following, two more ectoplasmic blasts hit two more completely full shelves, the supports for the second one snapping and falling over onto the one next to it, knocking it over as well. "Geez, can't you hold still?" he growled, fazing through the falling books and then a wall to keep up. Watching from the doorway, Sam and Tucker saw their friend leave the building and quickly rushed down the hall to the front doors to help if needed.

Just as the goth girl and techno geek were around the corner Star appeared at the opposite end with her bald teacher in tow. Pointing to the library doors, she said, "It was in there! I can't believe Danny Phantom would do something like that!"

Pushing the doors open dramatically, Mr. Lancer came face to face with a few destroyed bookshelves, plenty of singed books, and general mess and discord. "_A Study in Scarlet_!" he exclaimed, grabbing his head because he lacked the hair to hold onto. "Why do people keep destroying out school?"

At the commons area outside, an ecto-blast hit and splintered one of the picnic tables as it once again missed its target. "I swear, you are harder to catch than an eel!" Two more rays and two more missed, although the second one almost hit Sam as she came barreling around the corner. Squeaking and falling back on her butt, she was about to yell something unpleasant at the fake Danny when the real one hollered, "Sorry about that!"

A couple more missed blasts and Sam could tell that Danny would need some help with this opponent. He was simply too fast for her friend and crush. Swinging her purple spider bag off her shoulder, she unzipped the pouch and pulled out the second thermos, figuring that if he was so focused on Amity Park's hero then he wouldn't see what she was doing. Taking the lid off of her Fenton Thermos, Sam couldn't deny how grateful she was that the real Danny had one attached to his hip to help tell them apart.

The blue beam fired at it was all the distraction the half-ghost needed. As his duplicate was looking down at the violet-eyed teen and keeping out of the thermos' beam, Danny shot a blast right into its chest. The green energy went right through his clone and hit a tree close to the base, the poor thing taking too much damage to stay upright and falling with a loud thud. His intended target just smiled sardonically at him, once again turning into nothing. Something made it easier for Danny to see that he dissipated into a fine smoke, though, making the teenager question a possible conclusion he had come to earlier.

"Thanks, Sam," he said kindly as his feet touched the ground. "I have a guess as to what is going on, though. Want to skip school to figure it out?"

"And possibly miss Mr. Lancer's class if we don't make it back before lunch is over?" the girl asked incredulously. "Of course! Did you even need to ask?" The third member of the trio chuckling and nodding as well, holding out a hand for the ghost to take. The tingly, cold sensation of intangibility and invisibility permeated through the two human's body, along with the weightlessness of flight. Closing her eyes and feeling the wind through her hair, which oddly enough seemed immune to the affects of intangibility, the gothic teenager could honestly say she understood why Danny found it so relaxing.

About a minute into their flight, Danny spoke up. "The last time I was attacked by ghosts that looked anything like me, it was because Vlad was trying to clone me to create the 'perfect half-ghost son,'" he explained, the multi-billionaire's mansion coming into view. "These clones—I think the first one dissolved into smoke, too—are completely void of sound, and thus may be seen as defects. If Vlad still is trying his cloning experiments it will be in the basement."

"_This is Lance Thunder with some breaking news. It appears that the Danny Phantom attack on the Nasty Burger is not an isolated event,"_ the television that was on in the living room said as the three flew through the wall, the blonde-haired reporter standing in front of their school. _"I am here in front of Casper High School, where we have just learned that the library was completely turned upside down by our local ghost hero. The question is, is Danny Phantom going back to his old, evil ways, or is there some meaning behind this? Back to you Tiffany Snow."_

His eyes seeming a little brighter green than normal, Danny quickly fazed through the floor before Vlad returned to watch his show; the man could see him while intangible, even in his human form after all. "I stopped those fakes both time," he seethed as soon as they landed in the basement lab, letting go of his two friends and releasing his hold on his invisibility and intangibility. "Why are they trying to blame this on me again?"

"Why don't we just split up and look for what Vlad is doing instead," Sam suggested, already heading off around some huge computer to see what she could find.

"I have to agree with Sam, Danny," Tucker replied, heading in a different direction. "I mean, there is nothing you can do about it until you find the source, right?" Unable to refute their logic, Danny started searching in the way his two human friends couldn't. Going intangible again, he flew through each wall at different places and angles, looking for any hidden room in the secret lab. He even tried going through the ground but found nothing. Not twenty minutes after infiltrating their archenemy's lair the three regrouped to see what the others had found.

"We all have nothing?" Danny asked, finding it very doubtful that the fruitloop wasn't up to something sinister.

"There is no sign anywhere that he is trying to clone you again," Sam replied, scratching the back of her neck. "Maybe that last failed attempt with Dani discouraged him enough that he'll just give up."

"Doubtful," the white-haired hero replied, grabbing their wrist and flying back up through the ceiling and out of the mansion. "But now we are back to square one. Well, almost," he said, dropping the two off in the deserted hallway before fazing into the janitor's closet and changing back. The door was locked so he had to faze back through it. "When I was fighting Mirage my ghost rays went right through her, too. I don't know, maybe they are connected in some way."

"It sounds like we need to find this Mirage, then," Sam said with finality, opening the door to their next class. "Now let's get to class before the late bell—" a shrill sound echoed over the speakers "—rings…"

* * *

Buzzing down the streets on their scooters, the two teenagers that couldn't fly looked down every alley and in every store in search of the mysterious, smoke-like ghost that Danny had explained to them. Said boy was flying just above the tops of the buildings, mostly checking the sky and hoping his ghost sense would go off and tell him the annoying ghost was somewhere close by. So far he had come up with nothing, though. "We've been at this for an hour," he said into the Fenton Phone. "There has to be a better way to find her. Let's regroup by the TV store on Commerce." The quick affirmations of his two friends sounded cleanly in his ear.

Landing on the concrete sidewalk just in front of the dark-haired girl as her scooter came to a halt, they didn't need to wait more than thirty seconds for the technological aspect of their group to show up. "Running in circles like this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack," she said, sounding a little frustrated with the search.

"And it is very possible that she sees every move we make and is staying away from me since I can find her," Danny added, folding his arms across his chest. "Unfortunately our only ghost tracking devices are locked onto my ecto-signature, so they won't be any help." Gods the Fenton Boooo-merang sure got annoying after it hit him in the back of the head for the fifth time. Sometimes Tucker would throw it just to be a pain in the butt.

Opening her mouth to say something, probably along the lines of an agreement the with uselessness of the Fenton ghost trackers if they were trying to find a ghost other than her friend, but what came out instead was, "Danny, look out!"

Looking over his shoulder and seeing the green energy blast headed right for him, Danny launched forwards and snatched his best friends off their scooters as he dodged the attack. It landed silently behind him, and turning to see what he had been expecting to be a nice sized hole where they had just been, he instead saw the two scooters, completely unharmed. Floating ten feet above the ground was another Danny clone, this one looking quite smug at his sneak attack. "Great, more of them," the real ghost-child groaned, a ghost ray going right through its head and making it disappear. "That was surprisingly easy… It didn't even try to dodge. And did any of you notice how my ghost sense didn't go off when it showed up?"

"_This is Tiffany Snow with more breaking news!"_ the TVs in the store they were by said in unison. _"It appears that a whole army of Danny Phantoms are attacking Amity Park. Currently we have gotten news of nine of them, attacking anything from a 25K Jewelers to a cat up a tree. This event seems to be connected to the Nasty Burger and Casper High Library attacks."_

"Tucker, check and see where all those there Dannys are," Danny said, tone a little commanding. "If Mirage is making these things then she will need to be so close to all of them, right? Come tell me once you figure it out. I'm going to head over to the jewelry store and take out as many of these things as I can." Receiving a nod from his hat-wearing friend, Danny took off.

Coming up even with his latest doppelganger, he watched the beams of ghost energy break glass and crumble walls, but no rubble spilled onto the ground. It was as if they simply destroyed it, or it was all part of the illusion as well. "I would say none of these are your size, but everything just goes through you so technically nothing fits you," he stated evenly, the clone looking up at him and stopping its assault on the store. It floated up higher, higher, and a little higher until it accidentally got between Danny and the setting sun. he had to squint and look away slightly, but something caught his attention a second later. With the rays of light hitting the false image, it seemed to ripple and distort, just reinforcing his belief that these things weren't real. Another quick blast and that fake faded as well. "Do you have those coordinates triangulated yet?" he asked into the microphone.

"Almost Danny, just give me another… there!" Tucker's voice said. "It looks like the most probable location is above 1st and Commerce."

"Thanks Tuck," Danny said, smiling. "I think I found a way to find her. All these Dannys are just illusions, but they aren't in any way perfect. When the sun is put behind them it completely warps the image. I'm guessing that will work on whatever she is using to cloak herself as well."

"That makes sense," Sam cut in. "The definition of Mirage is something illusionary, without substance or reality. The mirages you see in the desert are made by heat and light, so if you change the angle of the light then it will change the image. She keeps sending dummies out to keep you busy while she makes it look like you are attacking Amity Park."

"Yeah," he replied, flying off to the place Tucker had mentioned.

A smoky woman appeared in front of him, startling him into stopping and almost falling out of the sky. "And where do you think you are going?" she asked pleasantly.

Smirking, he flew right through her, making her gasp in outrage. "You are not real," he said simply, checking the sun for the obvious ripple. There was none so he started to fly sideways in hopes of spotting it. More Mirages started appearing out of thin air, trying to contain him in a circle. Had he still thought that they were real it would have worked, but instead all it told him was that she didn't want him going that way, and since when was he one to follow the rules? Flying straight through another one, he completely ignored the ecto-blasts coming towards him until one actually hit. It sent him end over end for a few short yards, then he stopped his spiraling and looked up at the ring of ten Mirages, one of which was real.

"Not as easy as you thought it would be, is it?" they all asked in unison, making their voice echo.

"But still not hard," he shot back, along with a ghost ray that hit one of the them before they could scatter. Once the blast dissipated they reformed the ring and a tenth image forming out of nothing.

"Destroy as many as you want," they started, laughing at what they saw was the futility of this battle, "I can always create more to replace them." Two more ghost rays and all they did was laugh, but with the third they scattered for a moment again. "Try, try, try, as many times as can be," they sang in unison. Seven, eight, maybe ten ghost rays came at him at once. "You cannot hit what you cannot see."

Cannot see, that struck a cord with the half-ghost, and as he dodged the blasts since he didn't know which one was real he maneuvered so the glare of the sun was behind them. All ten Mirage's twisted to the point where they were barely recognizable, but they weren't the only things. There in the center of the circle the blue sky and clouds contorted into a weird spiral, revealing the illusion that kept the real Mirage invisible. Aiming towards the outer edges of the circle so as to not make her move, he started charging the ecto-energies in his palms. Then at the last possible second he redirected it all to his eyes and changed into the freezing cold of his cryokinesis. Caught off guard, a block of ice formed around the masked form of Mirage just as Tucker and Sam arrived on the scene. The duplicates of herself vanished as she fell, as well as the one cloaking her and the ones of Danny and the destroyed shops; even the cat in the tree Danny was tormenting was fake. Landing with a crash that shattered the ice, Mirage simply laid in the small crater and waited for the three ghost hunters to come and capture her.

Standing right next to her, the bottom of his thermos already starting to glow blue with the energy build up, Danny said, "There is one thing I want to know. I have never met you before, and as far as I know I have never done anything to you, so why did you want to get rid of me?"

She couldn't help but smile at him, finding the rumors she had heard about the half-ghost half-human to pretty much all be true. "I have no desire to be rid of you," she stated. "I was merely doing as I was asked."

Frowning at her answer, Danny decided to push it with one more question. "Why is it that the illusions of you can speak but the ones of me couldn't?"

"The more I observe something the better I can imitate it," she replied. "That is why your illusions were more realistic than the damaged buildings. But the one thing I can't make is sound, which is why I could only make my own illusions speak." Q and A was over at that point, for the blue beam of the Fenton Thermos pulled her into the ghost containment device.

"What was all that about?" Sam asked as Danny shifted back into human form.

"It's just… every other ghost I have fought has either said why they want to attack me or I've gotten in the way of their plans," he began, starting to walk down the street in the direction of the very obvious metal monstrosity he called the top of his house. "But when I met her all she said was she wanted me to disappear. No reason why, and I found it kind of strange. I would like to thank that I don't make people—er, ghosts—hate me for no reason. That would make things a lot more complex."

"I'd say," Tucker replied, leaning his scooter up again the steps leading to Danny's house before locking it to the handrail and going inside. "We have enough enemies that hate your for a reason."

"Exactly," he said, grateful his parents weren't in the living room as he walked through it.

"_It appears that all the damage being caused by Danny Phantom was fake,"_ the television said. Damn news traveled fact. _"All of the fake Dannys and fake damage is gone and it most likely that the real Danny Phantom is to thank for it. This is Tiffany Snow, and I never doubted our hero."_ The three friends laughed at little at the last line, recognizing it as an attempt to maintain her reputation.

Heading into the lab, they checked really quickly to make sure Jack and Maddie weren't there before quickly going over and emptying Mirage into the ghost zone. "Now, who's up for icecream?"

On the other side of that glowing green portal, Mirage pulled a small box out from the folds of her cloak. The words 'Property of Axion Labs' was printed in easy to read font along the top. She couldn't help up hope this little thing was worth the trouble she was going to as she put it back in its hiding place and waited for her exit to appear.

* * *

Chalk tapping agitatedly on the blackboard at the front of the room, Mr. Lancer did his best to not slam it down into the tray once he finished writing the day's assignment. "Due to circumstances beyond my control," he started, holding his hands behind his back, "the topic of your paper has changed. Two days ago the library was trashed by Danny Phantom, and subsequently so was most of the information we had on the Holocaust. Since it will take about a month to replace it all, I have decided that instead of pushing the assignment back you will get to choose a topic yourself—" The whole class cheered wildly at that announcement, but was quickly silenced by the sharp _snap!_ of a ruler hitting Mr. Lancer's desk, "—so long as it has something to do with history. The paper will still be due next Friday, so I suggest you hurry up."

Stifling his sigh as much as possible, Danny waited for his teacher to get distracted by something else before leaning over and asking his goth friend, "He couldn't have given us the four days that already passed back again?"

Also wanting to sigh at the time they had lost, Sam replied, "Apparently not."

* * *

My first OC ghost. :P I have one other OC ghost that will appear later, and so far, that is it. Not sure if I will come up with any others. Just know there is more to Mirage than meets the eye. :P

I figured I should explain the seven page paper for students in their Sophomore year. I actually had an eighth-grade social studies teacher who did this to us. I can't remember if the paper had to be five, seven, or ten pages, though, so I decided to be safe and go with seven. I could see Mr. Lancer doing this to them, too, since he made them take the CAT test Freshman year.


	4. Episode 55: Power Surge

Finally, I managed to got this guy done. I have only one more story to write in by the 4th to make sure I didn't go more than a year between updates. Speaking of that, I am very sorry for the horribly long wait between these two chapters. After going WoW cold turkey about 4 months ago it took a while to get my motivation back (I had a very bad WoW crash that made me feel just horrible), but I am happy to say that I am feeling much better now and hoping to keep my motivation up for writing.

I am pleased to tell you I am giving you a 8755 word episode! :D Longest one so far!

**I do not own Danny Phantom :'(**

* * *

**Episode 55: Power Surge**

"Danny!" his mother shouted, waking the teenager up from a dead sleep. Whenever she used that excited tone it normally meant they had created some new device that was no doubt going to cause his ghost half trouble.

"Danny boy!" his father yelled, bursting through his bedroom door and stopping for a couple seconds in the doorway. Rushing over to his son's bed, he flipped the piece of furniture over, sending the black-haired teen into the wall with a loud "Thwack!" Groaning defeatedly, Danny let his father peel him off the wall and pat the dust off of his night clothes. "You have to come see the new ghost-busting invention your mother and I made last night." Completely ignoring Danny's groan, the large man grabbed the slim boy by the wrist and drug him down the stairs to the kitchen and then down to the basement. Jazz and Maddie appeared just a few seconds after the two males, the former unsure if she was excited for a new invention, since she still dabbled in them a bit as to help her brother, or bored since they usually backfired on aforementioned brother. The woman quickly ran over to stand beside her husband, the hefty man turning his back to his two kids as he seemed to be putting the finishing touches on whatever contraption he had made.

Sighing out of sleepiness, Danny leaned against the wall and fought to keep his eyes open. "Let's just get this over with…" he mumbled to himself, drawing a small smirk and a giggle from his older sister.

"It can't be worse than some of the other things they've put you through," she said equally as quiet so as to not alert their parents. "After all, quite a few of their inventions have come in handy for you, Sam, and Tucker."

Absently rubbing the back of his head, the dark-haired teen replied, "While they can be helpful, most of them are still just a huge pain, like the Booo-merang."

The two were drawn out of their conversation at that moment as Jack turned around and help up something small. With all the grandeur he always used when showcasing his latest gadget, he announced triumphantly, "I give you two, the Fenton Ecto Neutralizer."

"Or the Fenton Necklace," Maddie cut in. It was a simple silver plaited chain with a gold-colored, diamond-shaped pendant about the size of half-dollar. The pendant's design was simple enough, with the original diamond divided into four smaller, equal-sized diamonds and what appeared to be a hinge on one side. Considering that there seemed to be nothing mechanical on the outer shell it was likely that the pendant opened, and that is where the machinery of the new invention was.

The two looked at their children expectantly, awkward seconds expanding into nearly a minute before Danny decided to humor his parents by asking, "And how does it work?" The sooner they got through their explanation the sooner he could get out of the lab and get himself some breakfast.

"I'm glad you asked that!" Jack roared confidently, closing the distance between himself and his son in a couple short strides and slipping the string over Danny's head. The pendant immediately gained a light green glow, but neither adult seemed to notice it. "When this pendant is put on a ghost it absorbs their powers and drains their strength—" he turned around and made one of his heroic poises, with his chest puffed out and hands on his hips "—and leaves them as weak as a little itty-bitty new born baby."

Danny was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, suddenly finding himself a lot more tired than nights when he had to stay up all night fighting Skulker before a major math test; he seemed to hone in on those days and make his life even more miserable than normal. "Danny, are you alright?" his mother asked, noticing her son was finding it difficult to stand up. His father, on the other hand, seemed completely oblivious to the fact and kept on rambling.

"I wanted to make it tear a ghost apart _molecule_ by _molecule_, but your mother insisted that we would need to keep the ghost alive in order to study it," he stated, turning back to his family with that same, large smile on his face. "Hehe, ghost, alive," he chuckled, finding the prospect of a ghost being alive humorous.

Jazz quickly snatched the necklace from her brother's neck, the pendant's green glow fading away as soon as it lost contact with the half-ghost. Waving it in her father's face for a short moment, Jazz asked irately, "And just how do you plan on getting a ghost to wear this? Do you really think they'd be stupid enough to put this on?" Dropping the Fenton Necklace in her father's overly large hand, she quickly wrapped her arms under her brother's to keep him from falling down, the fifteen-year-old still recovering from his short bout with the Fenton Ecto Neutralizer. "And must you two do this so early in the morning? Can't you see just how exhausted Danny is?" she berated, dragging her brother towards the stairs. "You two don't understand just how tiring high school is." Exchanging confused glances, the two adults just shrugged as their daughter helped her younger sibling up out of the lab.

Finally regaining enough strength to walk on his own, Danny stumbled over to the kitchen counter and started rummaging through the cupboards for some cereal. "Thanks, Jazz," he said gratefully, deciding for not the first time that having a sister who knew about his double life wasn't a bad thing. "I will have to be careful around that thing. Now I know what a battery feels like."

Taking a seat next to him and pouring some Fruit Loops into her bowl, Jazz jabbed her spoon in Danny's direction and asked, "Can they ever invent something that doesn't harm you?"

Shrugging his shoulder, the ghost-boy took a healthy bite of sugary goodness. "Some of the things they make are useful," he replied after swallowing. "The Specter Deflectors help protect Sam and Tucker, as do the Wrist Rays. Sam can use the Jack-o-Nine-Tails pretty well, although Tucker has been banned from it, and then there is a Fenton Thermos. We use the Specter Speeder to travel in the Ghost Zone, too, so not all of Mom and Dad's inventions are harmful."

Chuckling a little under her breath, the two ate the rest of their breakfast in silence. Placing their empty bowls in the sink, Jazz asked simply, "Do you need a ride to school today?"

Looking down at his hand while gauging his recovering power, a small smile spread across Danny's lips. "Yes, please," he replied.

* * *

Meeting their friend at his locker, Sam leaned against the other walls and asked, "You got a ride from Jazz this morning?"

Closing the locker door and letting out a deep sigh, the ghost boy replied, "After chasing the Ecto-puses, Box Ghost, and Skulker before running away from Valerie, I got about four hours of sleep before my dad drug me down to the lab to see his latest invention in ghost hunting technology." Waving his hands agitated in front of him as the three friends walked down the hallway, he stuffed them into his pants pockets as they reached their classroom door.

Wincing at what her friend had gone through in the last twelve hours, she started as she opened the door, "Sounds rough. What kooky thing did your dad make this time?"

Taking his seat and fishing through his bag for the assignment due, he answered, "A pendant that drains ghost powers. As soon as he put it on me I felt like I had no energy left and I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. It was horrible."

"I can only imagine," Sam said truthfully, also pulling out her Algebra assignment. She had one more problem on it to finish before their teacher gathered it up once the tardy bell rang.

Looking over the answers he had struggled to come up with the previous day, something about several of the questions struck him as odd. Looking over them a little closer, the blue-eyed boy couldn't help but shake his head as them. Quickly picking up a pencil and flipping it around to the eraser, he rubbed out half of the answers. Flipping it back to the lead, he hurriedly scribbled equations and solutions. "Having these powers can be a pain at times," he nodded, pleased with the new work he had done.

"Especially since your parents are ghost hunters," Tucker added. "I'm kind of surprised they haven't realized yet, what with how many of their inventions hone in on your ecto-signature."

Chuckling a little, Danny replied, "Yeah, no kidding. I'm just lucky they don't think I could possibly be a ghost. Although for some reason they've thought that Jazz was before." The tardy bell rang and without any hesitation he held his paper up to the teacher as he passed by, surprising both the teacher and his friends; Math was Danny's worst subject so he normally shuffled nervously or groaned before turning the papers in.

Waiting for the teacher to return to his desk, Sam whispered, "Are you alright, Danny?" At his confused look, she continued, "I don't think I've ever seen you hand in math homework without looking like you've seen a ghost, or something equally as scary that we don't see every day."

"I just feel confident in my answers toda—" he started, but the end of his sentence was cut off by the teacher.

"Danny, can you stand up really quick?" he asked, laying a paper down on his desk. Feeling a little nervous, the boy quickly obeyed. "I want you to answer a couple questions for me," he stated, turning around and taking up a piece of chalk. He quickly scrawled 14x – 7y + 4 = -5y +12 on the dark surface before turning back to his student and tapping the stubby chalk under the problem. "Solve for y."

Dash and Kwan couldn't contain their chuckles, for most of the school knew about this particular weakness of the jock's favorite nerd, but were shut up immediately when Danny said not a second later, "Seven X minus four equals Y."

He walked over to the boy, staring at him for a short moment before smiling and saying, "Correct. Let's try one more." On his way back to the chalkboard their teacher couldn't help but smile. He had walked over to his student to make sure the kid wasn't using his phone or some other device to get the answer from another person, and it didn't appear that he had. Wiping the previous question away, he replaced it with a much harder equation; x² - 4y² - 17 = 8x – 33.

Running the problem over in his head for a short moment, Danny responded with, "X equals two Y plus 4."

Giving only a slight nod to confirm it correct, he said, "You can sit back down now," and went back to flipping through the just-collected homework.

Nudging him with her elbow, Sam asked in a hushed voice, "How did you do that? I thought you had a hard time understanding math."

Unable to do anything but shrug his shoulders, the teenager replied equally quiet with, "I honestly don't know. I just looked at it and knew how to solve it. I… I don't know any other way to explain it."

"Do you think it might have something to do that necklace your dad put on you this morning?" Tucker asked, trying to speak as quiet as possible since several pairs of curious eyes were watching his childhood friend. "I mean, it wouldn't be the first time that something your dad made actually helped a ghost."

"I don't think," he told the dark-skinned male. "I mean, it really did drain my strength when he put it on me, and making me suddenly understand math doesn't seem like a likely side effect of that."

"Well, something must have caused it," Sam interjected, drawing the two boys' attention. "After all there is no way _you_ can just understand math out of no where."

"Why thanks, Sam," Danny replied, a scowl on his face.

* * *

Meeting up at their table at lunch, the first thing Sam said when her raven-haired friend sat down was, "Find any other subjects you're suddenly good at?"

Despite the fact that he wanted to scowl at her for her smug attitude, Danny couldn't deny the strangeness of the situation. "I could pay attention today in Biology, although for the last week or so I haven't found it quite as confusing, and Physics was easier than—" he let out a pained sigh and grabbed his head "—usual."

"And then there was Gym," Tucker cut in, taking a big bite of mashed potatoes that actually looked like mashed potatoes. "You had to have been using some of your ghost powers because you've never been able to bench one-hundred-and-twenty-five pounds in human form before."

Shaking his head, which was still in his hand, Danny said, "I've told you five times now Tucker, I wasn't using my ghost powers. I've never had my strength or endurance or agility or—ow—anything like that when not in ghost form."

"Danny, are you okay?" Sam asked, concern on her face. Reaching across the table she laid a hand on the hero's shoulder in an attempt to comfort him.

A slightly pained smile touching the corners of his mouth and one eye closed completely, Danny replied, "I have a horrible headache. I've been getting them for a couple weeks now, but—geez—this is the worst one so far. My head feels like an over-stuffed Fenton Thermos."

Sam was opening her mouth to speak again when Dash's obnoxious laughter drew her attention. The quarterback, as well as several of his friends, were gathered around the small, glasses-wearing redhead, one of which was casually leaning on his shoulder. His shorter arms were trying to get his book, which they were casually tossing between each other and keeping just out of his reach, back. It looked to be their biology book, but from that distance it was difficult to tell. "Do they ever stop?" she asked instead, shaking her head and turning back around to ask Danny more about his strange headaches.

"I wish someone would teach you guys a lesson," Mikey said suddenly, accompanied immediately by an icy breath from Danny.

"Oh great," the half-ghost protector of Amity Park sighed, knowing already just what they were going to hear next.

Appearing in a rising puff of green smoke, the three friends weren't surprised to see the wish-granting ghost, Desiree. "So you have wished it, and so it shall be," she said, voice echoing in that ghostly way. For not the first time Mikey suddenly found himself the possessor of ghostly-granted power, his body transforming into a wolf-alligator-like monster a foot taller than Dash.

Rubbing his eyes in an attempt to lessen his headache, Danny groaned, "I guess I gotta get to work." Slipping under the table, there was the signature flash of light as he changed, but the Danny Phantom that came out seemed a little disoriented. Sam could almost see the stars circling his head.

Taking note of her enemy's entrance, Desiree couldn't help but smirk. "Danny, you don't look too good," she cooed, chuckling a little as Monster Mikey grabbed Dash by the front of his shirt. "Unfortunately, you have a choice to make. Do you come after me, or do you save the football star?"

Monster Mikey raised Dash another foot away from the ground, growling angrily in his face and nearly making the jock scream like a little girl. There were other people still in the cafeteria, which is probably the only reason why he didn't. The decision was made for him as the transformed redhead threw the bully across the room. Flying on an intercept course, Danny managed to catch his nemesis a few feet before he slammed into the concrete wall. Depositing Dash on the floor as kindly as he could muster at the moment, he said, "I'd tell you something about karma, but I'm not in the mood for witty banter today. And I doubt you'd understand it anyway," he added under his breath. Flying back up into the center of the room, he scanned the cafeteria only to find that Desiree was gone, and had been replaced with someone else; Valerie. Mikey had also returned to his wimpy state, so at least he didn't have to deal with that, too. "Just what I need," he mumbled, grabbing his head as it started to throb.

"My thoughts exactly," the female hunter replied confidently and with a hint of ire, leveling her ecto-blaster. Without giving him the chance to say anything else, she fired off three blasts, each one missing him and crashing into an unoccupied table.

"You're destroying the school," he snapped, although internally he wasn't sure if that really was a bad thing. Then the thought of spending the day at home with his parents crept into his head and he decided that yes, it was bad. "I'll just knock her off her board and get out of here," he muttered to himself, pointing a single finger at the jet board she was riding. A small, green ecto-blast collected at the end of that digit, the core lightening to almost white. In the next two seconds as he released the energy several things happened. First, the supposed-to-be small blast increased in size to what was probably equivalent to him using both hands. When it made contact with the board it not only knocked his classmate from it but also created a small fracture line where it impacted. The recoil force from the blast sent Danny flying backwards and through the wall, his intangibility the only thing that kept the wall together. And his headache mysteriously vanished.

Sam and Tucker were shell-shocked for around three seconds after their friend disappeared through the wall. Quickly jumping up from their seats, the two scurried out into the hallway and in the direction their half-ghost comrade had flown. Checking every room as they went, they finally located him in an empty classroom three rooms away, in his human form. Rushing over to him and first making sure he wasn't injured in any way, Sam asked, "Danny, what happened?"

Shaking his now-clear head, he replied, "I'm not sure. I only meant to throw her off balance so I could get away while the board auto-piloted back to her, but right when I went to release the energy… it was like someone turned a faucet to high. I couldn't control the energy burst at all, and it sent me flying back. Surprisingly, it also got rid of my headache."

Connecting the two seemingly unrelated details, Sam asked, "Could your headaches have something to do with the burst in energy from your last attack?" At her two friends' incredulous stares, she continued, "Think of it as a bottle of cola. What happens when you shake it?"

"The pressure builds up," Danny replied, suddenly following the same train of thought. "And so long as it is sealed the extra pressure has no where to go."

"So when you do finally open a value, the pressure explodes through, like with what I had meant to be a small ecto-blast," the goth girl finished.

"So the only question now is who shook Danny," Tucker said after about ten seconds of silence, smiling broadly at his own joke. "I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but could it have something to do with the Fenton Ecto Neutralizer your dad put on you."

Crossing his arm and leaning back against the wall in concentration, he thought it over for a moment before shaking his head. "I don't think so," he answered. "I've been getting these headaches for a couple weeks now and Dad just made that last night. I guess it is possible, but I doubt it."

"Still, it's worth checking out," the only girl in the group added, getting a nod of approval from her two best friends.

* * *

Having had no more sightings of Desiree the rest of the school day and no other ghosts running rampant, the three young ghost hunters were hurrying back to Danny's house. Glancing over at the youngest member of their trio, Sam noticed he was once again holding his head. "Another headache?" she asked, shifting the weight of her spider backpack to her other shoulder.

"It started right after lunch," he explained, walking up the few steps to his front door. "It's not as bad as it was before, but it's getting there." Opening the door and inviting them inside, the three friends were quite relieved to find the Fentons gathered in the living room fiddling with some new invention and not with the particular one they wanted to look at. Maddie gave them a loving hello, but Jack seemed completely oblivious as he carefully messed with some of the interior wiring, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth in concentration. "We're just going to get some snacks from the kitchen," he told her.

"Okay," his mother replied, returning to whatever they were working on.

As soon as they were out of sight Danny said, "Sam, I need you to go down to the lab and get the necklace. Tucker and I will stay up here and make some snacks, 'cause I have a feeling we'll be out for a while." Giving him a quick nod, the only girl in their group quickly vanished down the stairs.

"So where are we going to go?" Tucker asked as he retrieved the peanut butter from the cupboard.

Getting the jam and bread out of the refrigerator, Danny replied, "Remember when I was first getting the hang of my powers, like really learning how to use them and we went to that forest outside of the city since I had a lot of trouble aiming and we didn't want to accidentally destroy the lab?"

Nodding to his best friend's remark, the techno geek inquired, "We going there?"

"Wasn't it a good couple hours away?" Sam asked as she reappeared from the lab, a chain dangling from one hand. "That's why we went on the weekend, so we'd have time to get there and back. This is the right one, right?" she added, holding up the pendant.

"Yeah, it is, and I don't have until the weekend," the half-ghost stated, walking over to her and taking her other hand, making her discreetly blush. He could feel the heat rising to his face a bit, too, but couldn't feel the draining effects of the Fenton Necklace. "And it won't take nearly as long to get there if I fly us, just so long as that thing won't affect my invisibility," he added, releasing Sam's hand and motioning towards the device she was holding.

"I'd be more worried about it affecting your flight," Tucker commented, slapping together the last peanut butter and jam sandwich. "You might be able to survive a fall from a hundred meters in the air but Sam and I can't."

Dropping the sandwiches as well as three oranges from the fridge into his backpack, Danny scowled at the other boy and said, "It didn't affect me when I touched Sam, so it's just if it affects my abilities that are affecting Sam. Now let's go, before my parents finish whatever knew invention they are working on that is made to track, capture, stun, or tear me apart _molecule by molecule_." He said the last part in his best Jack impression, making his two friends laugh.

Slipping back out through the front door with just a flimsy "We're going to Sam's for a while," the three quickly hid in any alleyway while Danny transformed and rendered all three invisible; well, all except Sam's hand since the amulet was absorbing Danny's power. Leaping into the air, they headed off to their secret training ground at close to Danny's top speed of 147 mph.

* * *

They had made little progress and things had gotten progressively worse over the last week. What little progress they had made was discerning that the Fenton Necklace couldn't have possibly caused Danny's power spike. With his ghost energy on the fritz he was having a lot of difficulties catching ghosts, and Sam ended up using it to stop Johnny 13. They let him back out in their training ground several hours later and he agreed to stay with them long enough to see if the pendant did the same thing to him as what was happening to Danny. Two days later, to his disappointment, his ghost energy hadn't increased, and after seeing what Danny's out-of-control energy could do he promised to head back to the ghost zone immediately without causing more problems.

Danny's condition had also deteriorated. His headaches returned faster and it took more blasts to clear them up, but it would leave him feeling drained afterwards until the headache once again came back with a vengeance. To add to things, they hadn't see Desiree in that week so they had no clue just what the wishing-ghost was up to.

Re-reviewing all the information he had on their current situation on his PDA, Tucker suddenly jumped to his feet and nearly dropped said PDA. His sudden movement drew both Sam's and Danny's attention, the latter of which was just starting to get another headache. "Danny's headaches are because he had extra ecto-energy that has no where to go, right?" he asked, getting an eye-roll from Sam.

"We established that long ago," the girl replied sarcastically. "I thought maybe you had figured out what was causing it."

"Let me finish, Sam. That was a rhetorical question," he berated, scooping up the Fenton Necklace that had been lying beside him when he was sitting. "So his headaches and the uncontrollable bursts of energy are because the energy is building up with nowhere to go. And this is made to absorb and neutralize ghost energy, right?" he continued, holding up the previously mentioned item. "So couldn't it be used to absorb that extra energy and get rid of Danny's headaches?"

"Last time I put that on it made me weaker than you," Amity Park's hero replied, getting a half-hearted scowl from the tech-savvy teen; he knew his friend was really starting to get mentally drained by being almost constantly in pain.

"Last time you put this on your headaches weren't nearly as bad, right?" Tucker asked, getting the other two high schoolers' undivided attention again. "It's just a possibility, but maybe you have more energy now than it can process, so it won't completely drain you."

Smiling apologetically, Danny said, "It's worth a shot."

Tossing it the short distance, the two humans waited patiently for the necklace to take effect. Placing the string over his head, it took several minutes for the throbbing in his temples to subside. It was working, though, and he just had to wait and see how well.

An hour later he released a much weaker ecto-ray at one of the trees. He had fired off several such blasts to see how his ghost energy would recover with the Fenton Necklace on, and he was pleased to see if came back about how it normally would. With this strange increase in power it appeared that the pendant could only process so much of it, which left Danny with a level of power his strength wouldn't go under. The only bad thing about that was the power level was a decent way below his normal strength. "This worked a lot better than I thought it would," he said. He tried to not show his worry as he looked at how shallow the ecto-blasts had been. It wasn't an exact figure, but Danny guessed he was probably down to about two-thirds his full power, or what had been his full power before this strange spike, if not less.

"Will you be alright, Danny?" Sam asked, placing a concerned hand on his shoulder and looking in the same direction he was. "Those rays seemed a lot weaker than your normal ones."

"They definitely aren't as strong," Danny replied, "but it is better than destroying every as I try to catch the ghost. Since they've been getting away half of the time because I couldn't aim well I can't exactly justify knocking out entire walls. I wouldn't be able to justify that if I _was_ catching the ghosts."

Nodding nervously and looking towards the ground, Sam couldn't help but recall the events of the last few days. The store she normally bought music from was currently closed for repairs after Danny accidentally converted one of the walls into a new door. She knew he didn't mean to, but the store owner was definitely not too happy about it. From watching the news she had learned that Danny Phantom's acceptance percentage had gone down eleven percent in just four days. And with all the destruction he was causing they were lucky it was only that much. They were just lucky Amity Park had become quite understanding over the last year and seemed to realize he wasn't doing it on purpose. Of course, there were always those just looking for an excuse to hate the ghost hero, namely Vlad, Valerie, and said hero's own parents (although they didn't know it was their son).

Feeling refreshed despite the drain on his strength, Danny stood at his full height. "Now that we have this fixed, let's go home," he said, offering a hand to both of his friends. Tucker took it quickly, but Sam was a little more hesitant.

"Danny, you do realize this isn't a permanent solution, right?" she asked, reluctantly accepting the outstretched hand. "It's basically just an ecto-band-aid. If we don't fix the problem at its source…"

"Sam, I know, I know," Danny replied coolly, brushing off his friend's concerns. "We'll figure all of that out later. For now I just want to finally relax." In his mind, though, he knew that she was right. The pendant fix wouldn't work for very long. As his powers had slowly increased his enemies had come up with better ways to fight him, and through training of their own increased their strength little by little. Now his power was cut down drastically. He honestly didn't know how he'd fair in the next battle. If worse comes to worst, he might have to remove the pendant to fight.

Sam was more observant than Danny gave her credit for, or at least outwardly gave her credit for. She noticed easily that it took him several seconds longer than usual to turn them invisible and he was flying slower, as well. She, too, was worried just how well he would hold up in his next ghost fight, but couldn't bring herself to ruin the moment. Danny had suffered excruciating headaches over the last week, and now he was finally free of them, even if only for a short while.

* * *

Walking down the hallway to their fifth period class and stopping by the techno geek's locker so he could replace the text book he was carrying, Sam asked, "Are you sure you're alright, Danny?" He hadn't particularly looked any different, but the girl couldn't help feeling he was a little sluggish that morning, and maybe bordering on sleepy. He had denied such accusations immediately when she brought them up last period, which only made her more suspicious.

"Sam, I told you I'm just fine," he answered for probably the sixth time, although each time his conviction behind the words was diminishing. His power hadn't drained any more than what it had back at their training ground, but it just seemed a lot more exhausting than when his power had naturally been at that level, and he wasn't sure why. He hadn't used his powers for anything besides flying to the school. "If I seem a little tired it's just because I need to eat. So, why don't we get to the cafeteria and get some food before something shows up to disturb—"

"_Fenton_!" rang from the opposite end of the hallway, Amity High's usual menace appearing around the corner with a paper in his hand. On it was a bright red letter F.

"—us…" Danny finished, sentence trailing off in a sigh. "I'll see you guys in the cafeteria… maybe…" he added, shifting the weight of his backpack on his shoulder before taking off.

The football quarterback was by them just a second later, stopping at the next corner long enough to yell, "I'm taking this F I got on my Science paper out of your hide!" before disappearing into the next hallway.

Glancing kind of dumbfounded at each other, Tucker was the first one to speak up. "Do you think he'll be alright?" he asked, turning to look in the direction their friend had disappeared.

"Dash isn't a ghost, so he shouldn't have too much of a problem," Sam replied, also glancing where the boy had vanished. She wasn't entirely convinced herself.

Running down the hall at breakneck speed, the weariness that had been assaulting him all day clouded the ghost-boy's mind. While on a normal day he might have thought to duck into an empty classroom and turn invisible, now the only thing he wanted to think about was running. Slipping into a transecting hallway, he leaned back against the wall to catch his breath, watching as Dash flew right on by. Breathing out in a sigh of relief, he let his back slide down the wall until he was sitting. He was out of trouble for—a large hand grabbed the front of his shirt.

"I found you, Fentoenail," Dash said menacingly, a strange green glow to his eyes.

Being lifted another foot off the ground, hands trying to dislodge the strong fingers bunched in the cloth at his neck, Danny stuttered, "H-how did you find me?"

That actually stopped Dash for a moment, a confused look on his face. "Uh… I don't really know," he said in his usual idiot drawl. "I just wished I knew where to find you, and, uh, I could find you."

Danny felt his stomach drop. The green glow in Dash's eyes made sense now. And if his wish had been granted… a wisp of cold breath escaped his throat. "Dash, I don't have time for you right now," the smaller teen said with urgency.

Unfortunately his captor did not see it that way, instead taking it as an insult. "I don't know what you mean by that, but I'm going to make you wish you hadn't said that," he growled, raising his fist.

"Wish, that's it," Danny said quietly, the way to get out the situation suddenly coming to his mind. "I wish you would show yourself!" he yelled, startling the bully holding him up.

Green smoke started to rise from the ground, an echoing voice saying, "So you have wished it, and so it shall be." Materializing out of the vapor just a yard from the two students, the wishing ghost looked on half-bemused and half-seething. Once again she had been tricked by her nemesis' wish, this time into revealing herself. From the looks of things, though, the young hero was too late to stop her; his power seemed significantly weaker than hers.

Smiling to himself, Danny couldn't help but notice that Desiree's appearance had the desired effect on Dash. The muscular teenager had frozen in place for a moment before absentmindedly (well, more absentmindedly than usual) releasing his grasp on the front of his punching bag's shirt. Taking two steps back, he said as he turned to run, "I'm letting you off the hook this time, Danny Fenton, but don't expect to be so lucky next time." Then he vanished around a bend in the hall.

"Finally, we're alone," he said coyly after a quick glance to make sure no one else would see. Punching a closed fist into his open palm, the twin rings that changed his form from human to ghost appeared around his connected hands, traveling up his arms and expanding once they got to his shoulders to encompass the rest of his body as they continued across him crossways. "Now how about we have some fun," he added, hands glowing green.

"If that is your desire," the wishing ghost shot back, ghost energy also collecting in her palms.

An intangible Danny Phantom came flying through the cafeteria wall, turning solid again just as he hit the popular kids table and sliding across it, sending their food trays into their faces and laps. He continued sliding right off of the other end and across the floor until he came to rest at the base of the table where his two friends were sitting. "What happened, Danny?" Sam asked in a hush voice since people would be paying attention with her friend as his ghost fighting alter ego. Glancing up at Paulina and watching her try to pick a jell-o-like substance out of her hair, the goth girl couldn't help but add, "And great shot, by the way."

Grabbing his head in an attempt to disperse the stars circling it, he replied, "Yeah, I'm not the only one." Shifting through the wall he had flown through just a short moment before, the wishing ghost Desiree couldn't keep the smirk from her face.

"Oh, my hair," Paulina's heavily accented voice whined, fingers trying to dislodge what was once going to be her meal from the silky strands. "I wish it would just come out."

The smile on her face growing broader, streams of ecto-energy shot from her fingers at the cheerleader. "So you have wished it," she stated maniacally, watching with great amusement as large clumps of hair started dislodging themselves from the girl's head. When the girl looked down at her hands to find them full of her own hair she screamed and jumped up from her seat. The dark strands fell to hit the cafeteria floor as Paulina's delicate hands reached up to touch her now smooth, bald head. Burying her eyes in the palms of her hands, she quickly ran from the commons, her loud cries growing quieter as she got farther and farther away. "I don't see what her problem is," Desiree stated sarcastically, floating a few feet above the floor, "she wished her 'hair' would 'just come out.'"

Having finally recovered from his earlier impromptu flying lesson, Danny Phantom quickly floated up so he was even with the now quite large female ghost. "As rude as she can be at times," he started, thinking in the back of his mind that he was quite thankful he had gotten over his crush on her months ago, "I believe making her hair fall out is a little too much."

"It's not my fault she didn't state her wish clearly," Desiree said with mock innocence, her large form towering over the smaller half-ghost. "And you know I must grant any wish I hear."

Smiling, Danny replied with, "Yeah, I know. So I wish you would—oof!" He was hit directly by one of her ecto rays, the blast sending him back into the wall and momentarily knocking the wind out of him. "Shoot, she's gotten stronger," he muttered to himself, pulling his body out of the concrete wall. A slight impression of him was left in the hard surface, something that the school would have to repair later, but that was the least of his worries at the moment. Feet turning into a spectral tail, he nimbly dodged her next volley of blasts, several new holes appearing in the wall behind where he had just been. Shooting off a ray of his own, he thought he had this in the bag—er thermos—until she simply held up a hand and defused it. "What?" he asked, completely shocked.

"Have you gotten weaker?" she teased, returning the shot, only stronger. It once again hit him squarely in the chest and sent him back into the wall.

Once again pulling himself out of the rubble, Danny shook the dizziness away and mumbled, "Well, that didn't work." Flying up even with her for the third time, he decided to try one more time. Pulling out his Fenton Thermos, he started, "I wish you would g—ouch!" Green ecto-steam rose from his hands where the ray had hit the thermos from his hands. "She's granted too many wishes, I can't keep up," he said softly to himself, then quickly turned around to find her laughing right over his shoulder.

"So you finally get it?" Desiree asked, hitting him in the back with a ghost ray then catching him by the back of his black hazmat shirt right before he hit the wall. "I am too fast for you, Danny Phantom. There is no way you can beat me at your current level." She threw him into the ceiling this time, five plaster tiles falling down with him and smashing to bits around him when they hit the floor. "You're finished. I win."

Pushing himself back to his feet, a determined gleam in his eyes, Danny commanded, "Everyone, out!" For a moment everything stood still; it was as if time itself had stopped. Then, slowly everyone except Sam and Tucker turned towards the door and exited calmly.

"What's going on?" the latter asked, surprised not only by the fact that Danny's fans were leaving but that they were doing so calmly. "It's almost like they're possessed…"

"A remote possession?" Sam inquired farther, keeping her voice down in an attempt to keep their conversation from Desiree. "Could Danny's strange power spike have given him new abilities?"

"That would be pretty awesome." And with that comment the two slinked back into a corner.

Looking around in surprise as the last of the non-ghost-hunting students filed out of the area, Danny let a wary smile touch his lips. "I don't know if this is the smartest idea… but I don't have much of a choice," he remarked, clutching at his chest. Grabbing the cord around his neck, he pulled the pendant out from under his shirt and stared at it for one more second before he yanked hard, the back clasp releasing and the Fenton Ecto Neutralizer dropping to the floor below. He immediately felt his ghost energy start to rise, revitalizing him. His senses started to sharpen again as the drowsiness was pushed away and the next several blasts that hit him didn't do near as much damage. They still hurt and sent him flying, but he was seeing them more and more each time, as if the black-haired ghost genie was slowing down. He knew that wasn't the case, and he was in fact just speeding up, but he still couldn't help but scoff at how he could have let such weak attacks affect him so. Finally after a couple minutes of exchanging blows, which destroyed three tables, some more ceiling tiles, two windows, and put a hole in the wall, Danny held up a hand and did exactly what Desiree had done; defused an ecto-ray with his hand. "Have you gotten weaker?" he taunted.

Yelling in fury, she charged right at him with an ecto-laden fist. He responded by holding up an open palm and collecting his energy in it. A green orb formed in his hand, brightening as more energy was forced into it, and then, when Desiree was only a few inches from hitting him, he released it. The ball flared out to twice its diameter and shot forward in a straight beam. They could hear Desiree's scream from inside the column, and based on the fact that the ceiling in line with it seemed to have be being burned away they could only guess that even her increased power from granting who knows how many wishes couldn't fully protect her. The recoil sent Danny flying back into the wall and he was glad for the fact that the force had altered the course of his attack when it finally ended and he saw the neat, clean, new skylight in the cafeteria roof. Had that blast hit the wall who knew just what it would have taken out along its path? He was also thankful for his two friends staying behind because as Desiree fell towards the floor a blue beam caught her and pulled her into the Fenton Thermos Sam always carried on her person.

"And that's that," the girl stated coolly, shaking the thermos for good measure. Looking around at all of the destruction, she then chuckled nervously and added, "Maybe we should be getting out of here, Dann…y?" The boy was once again lost under rubble. Rushing over with Tucker and quickly unburying him, they snatched up the Fenton Necklace in the middle of the room and phased up through the roof before flying towards the Danny's home.

Emptying Desiree into the Ghost Zone, Sam turned back to the boy who was once again wearing the power sucking necklace. "Even taking it off for a few moments makes the power build up," she commented, leaning against the wall and sliding down it until she was sitting. "Is there nothing we can come up with to fix this? What have you always done with you gain a power you can't control?"

"Normally I train with it so I can control it better," he replied, plopping down in a chair. "Like when I first discovered my ecto-rays, I just kept trying until I got it, but this time… Wait, Frostbite!" he shouted, getting a "shh" from the other two to remind him they had seen his parents as they phased through the ceiling to get there.

"Jack, did you hear something from the lab?" Maddie could be heard from the living room. There was a possible "was it a ghost?" from Jack, but it was difficult to tell, followed by a "I'm going to check," from Danny's mother.

"Shoot," the boy winced, quickly grabbing his best friends' hands and diving through the open Fenton Portal into the Ghost Zone. Not ten seconds later the blue jumpsuit wearing woman could be seen peeking around the corner into the lab.

"Hmm, must have been my imagination," she said, shrugging and heading back upstairs.

* * *

"What seems to be the problem Great One?" Frostbite asked when the Savior of the Ghost Zone suddenly showed up.

"Why did we come here again, Danny?" Tucker shivered. It wasn't that he wasn't fond of the yeti-ghost, but they hadn't had time to pack a coat because of Danny's mom.

"The last time I got a new power, you know, my cryokinesis, Frostbite was able to help me learn to control it," Danny explained. "It's a long shot, but maybe he can help me with this, too. Maybe he's heard of it before." Facing the large, snow-dwelling ghost, he started with, "I have a bit of a problem…"

Over an hour later, after relaying the entire story of what had happened over the last week and showing Frostbite the Fenton Ecto Neutralizer and his power overload recoil, the three sat back anxiously to see what wisdom the older ghost might offer. Unfortunately, he seemed just a little less perplexed than they did. "I will be honest, Great One, I have never heard of something like this before. Normally when a ghost gets more powerful it is through great sacrifice and long hours of training," he replied, the three teens groaning defeatedly. "I can wager a guess as to what it is, though." They immediately perked up again. "I would guess it is something like "ghost puberty." Since this power showed up so suddenly you don't know what to do with it and where to distribute it. Some acts on its own, such as increasing your intelligence and strength in human form, but you aren't able to vent the extra that has no place to go. If you try to distribute it throughout your body before you strengthen it first it could cause some serious damage."

"Is there not something like that?" Tucker asked, a little confused. "I mean, Danny fought the daughter of the Lunch Lade and the Box Ghost from the future once, so wouldn't ghost children go through it?"

Frostbite just shook his head. "Ghosts don't have children the same way humans do," he started. "Creating a child involves combining two peoples ghost energy. But since ghosts don't age, they won't grow up unless they absorb more energy from their parents. But they don't grow up like you do."

"Vlad never mentioned anything similar to this in his conversations with you?" Sam asked, thinking maybe the other half-ghost might have accidentally let something slip."

"Vlad was in college when he was infected with ghost energy," Danny remarked, shaking his head. "He wouldn't have gone through this." Turning back to the yeti he asked, "Is there no way you can help me control this?"

Resting his chin in his hand in thought, Frostbite shook his head several times over the next moment. "You'll have to learn how to control the increased power gradually, like if you had worked to increase your ghost energy. The problem is finding a way to disperse the extra energy without draining too much, like that does," he remarked, pointing to the pendant laying in the snow a foot from him. "That thing has the right idea, but it's uncontrollable. If we could fix it… I think I have an idea! I will need you to leave that here, though."

"If it will help then I will deal without it," Danny replied immediately, standing up.

Sam grabbed his arm and made him sit back down. "How long do you think it will take?" she asked.

"Unfortunately, I can't give you an exact timeframe," the cryokinentic ghost replied. "I'm pretty sure I can get him to help, but how long it will take to modify it can't be guessed. The best I can give you is go back to your world and I'll send Cujo for you when it's done."

The three nodded in reply, Danny eagerly and Sam and Tucker reluctantly, before the former of the three grabbed their hands and started to fly back to the Fenton Portal and their homes.

* * *

Those nine days could have gone by a lot faster, but Cujo finally showed up to fetch the three friends, and they were quite thankful for an excuse to get out of Mr. Lancer's English class. What they weren't expecting when they got to Frostbite's domain was to see Technus. The technology ghost was looking both proud and sour at the same time, and they could guess why. Right after Danny landed and released his friends' hands Technus tossed an object at his head. Nimbly catching it, it was nearly indistinguishable from the Fenton Necklace he had left with Frostbite. "Your parents can sure make some interesting stuff. I fixed the design, though. The dials on the back will allow you to regulate how much energy it releases from your body," he remarked. "Don't think I did this for you," he added quickly. "I owed Frostbite one, so now I am even with him. Next time we meet, I will be your enemy." Without any further words, he flew off.

"He isn't so bad," Frostbite stated, coming out from behind a corner. Snatching up the device and turning a couple of the dials on the back, he then slipped the cord over the ghost-teen's neck. "That should be set right to the level of power you had before the spike. You will want to slowly decrease the amount the energy vented so your body can adapt to it. I don't know how long it will take, but that should solve your problem." A big, toothy grin on his face, he then promptly invited the three to a feast in the Great One's honor. And since they were adequately dressed this time, neither Sam nor Tucker had any qualms with a quick ghost feast to keep them from having to return to school that day.

* * *

I was debating between two different titles for this chapter. The first one is what I decided to go with, **Power Surge**, because the second one, **Growing Pains**, seemed to give away too much of the ending.

I am a bit worried about this chapter. Because of how long it has been since I wrote in this one and this story isn't quite in my usual style I'm afraid I may have deviated a bit from previous episodes... If I have, I would appreciate some heads up so I can fix it for this and future episodes.


End file.
